Claresholm
Claresholm is a town located within southern Alberta, Canada. It is located on Highway 2, approximately northwest of the City of Lethbridge and south of the City of Calgary.
One of the Famous Five involved in the Persons Case, Louise McKinne ...
,
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
) is a Canadian artist based in
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
,
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
, whose work has exhibited nationally and internationally. She works primarily in
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
,
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...
, and
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
/
installation
Installation may refer to:
* Installation (computer programs)
* Installation, work of installation art
* Installation, military base
* Installation, into an office, especially a religious (Installation (Christianity) Installation is a Christian li ...
and makes photographs of staged dioramas to explore sexuality and national identity, and even, national icons such as the
Group of Seven
The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member". It is official ...
. Her work blurs the lines between gendered bodies by employing phalluses. She is also an educator: she worked as a sessional instructor at the
University of Manitoba
The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.MFA from the
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
in 1980 and with a
Bachelor of Fine Arts
A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases.
Background
The Bachelor ...
(Honours) from the
University of Manitoba
The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Amer ...
,
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...
,
Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oa ...
and
Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre ...
. Her art practice shifted in the mid-1980s, when a friend showed her a book called ''Joel-Peter Witkin: Forty Photographs'', which led her to start using a camera.
Exhibitions
Thorneycroft has exhibited her work across Canada, the United States and Europe, as well as in Moscow, Tokyo and Sydney. In 2022, she showed the mixed media installation ''Herd'', which involved a 40-foot ramp and over 150 toy horses, half of which had been altered. She presented images from past and current work, and focused on her use of surrogates to address the human condition in an artist's talk about the show.
Selected Artworks
''Canadians and Americans (best friends forever … it's complicated)''
A series of digital photographs, ''Canadians and Americans (best friends forever … it's complicated)'' looks at iconic moments and figures in American and Canadian history to explore the unbalanced relationship and power dynamic between the two neighbouring countries. The collection was exhibited at the Michael Gibson Gallery in
London, Ontario
London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...
in October of 2013.
''A People's History''
Looking at the horrific history of crimes and atrocities perpetrated against vulnerable people in Canada, ''A People's History'' is a series of photographs based on
diorama
A diorama is a replica of a scene, typically a three-dimensional full-size or miniature model, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum. Dioramas are often built by hobbyists as part of related hobbies such as military vehicle mode ...
s created by the artist.
''Group of Seven Awkward Moments''
''Group of Seven Awkward Moments'' is a photographic series created between 2007 and 2010 which employs
black humour
Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...
to look at the effect of the
mythology
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
of the Canadian landscape on the construct of Canadian identity. The series features dioramas of histories that are part of iconic Canadian symbolism paired with backgrounds of reproductions of paintings by The
Group of Seven
The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member". It is official ...
.
''There Must Be 50 Ways to Kill Your Lover''
This series of drawings explores violence in the media through the behaviour of popular cartoon characters.
''The Canadiana Martyrdom Series''
The photographs is this series uses paraphernalia depicting Canadian tourism, identity, and culture to discuss spectacles of martyrdom and apathy to human suffering.
Selected public collections
Among the international and national public collections which hold her work are the following:
*
Agnes Etherington Art Centre
The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is located in Kingston, Ontario, in the heart of the historic campus of Queen's University. Situated on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory, the gallery has received a number of awards for its exhib ...
, Kingston, Ontario
*
McMichael Canadian Art Collection
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection (MCAC) is an art museum in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located on a property in Kleinburg, an unincorporated village in Vaughan. The property includes the museum's main building, a sculpture garde ...
, Kleinburg, Ontario
*
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...
, Ottawa, Ontario
* Nickle Galleries, Calgary, Alberta
*
Winnipeg Art Gallery
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...
, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Awards
In 2001, she received a Fleck Fellowship from the Banff Centre for the Arts. In 2012, Thorneycroft was awarded a Manitoba Arts Council Major Arts Grant and an Individual Artist Grant from the Winnipeg Arts Council. In 2016, Thorneycroft was the recipient of the Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction by the
Manitoba Arts Council
, type = Council
, formed = 1965
, headquarters = 525 – 93 Lombard Ave, Winnipeg, MB R3B 3B1
, budget = $10.2 m CAD (2020)
, chief1_name = Roberta Christianson
, chief1_position = Chair
, chief2_name = Randy Joynt
, chief2_position = Exec ...
. As a recipient, Thorneycroft received $30,000 and the council's highest distinction for outstanding Manitoba artists with "long-term achievements".