Liz Magor
Nationality: Canadian
Born: 1948-04-11, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Vancouver-based artist Liz Magor studied at the Faculty of Art at the University of British Columbia (1966-68), Parson's School of Design (1968-70) and Vancouver School of Art (Diploma 1971). Since the early 1970s Magor's work has been exhibited nationally in solo exhibitions in Vancouver, Victoria, Lethbridge, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Oakville and London, England. Her work has also been included in a number of important group exhibitions over the last 25 years including The Culture of Nature (Kamloops Art Gallery, 1996), Corpus (Mendal Art Gallery, 1993), Salvage Paradigm (YYZ, 1990), Active Surplus: The Economy of the Object (The Power Plant, 1987) and Mise en Scene (Vancouver Art Gallery, 1982). Magor's work has also been selected to represent Canada in such major international exhibitions as Notion of Conflict: A Selection of Contemporary Canadian Art (Stedelijk Musuem, Amsterdam, 1995), Documenta VIII (Kassel, Germany, 1987) and XLI Biennale di Venezia (Venice, Italy, 1984). Since 1980 Magor has also held a number of teaching appointments at the Ontario College of Art and Design, University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Banff Centre, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and Mount Allison University.

Since the early 1970s Liz Magor has produced numerous sculptural and photo-based works that have sensitively addressed issues of place and refuge, creation and transformation, production and reproduction, identity and the material yet fragile condition of the human body. A common element of Magor's earlier work such as Bird Nest Kits (1975), Compost Figures (1978), Four Boys And A Girl and A Concise History (1979), and Production (1980-85) is the consideration given to the common and natural materials used as well as the artist's methodical working process.

Magor's most recent sculptural and photo-based work continues the artist's interest in human refuge and shelter (both physical and emotional) which have become central to Magor's work since the late eighties and early nineties with her exploration of pioneer cabins and wilderness fantasies. In her new work, exhibited as Sleeping Rough, Magor has created sites of shelter in the form of hollow logs and tree trunks cast out of polymerized gypsum. These quasi-tree houses, some furnished with carpet underlay or sleeping bags, are offered as plausible yet contradictory havens. In her artist statement for Sleeping Rough Liz Magor writes: "These new sculptures exploit the belief that nature is the source of our most ideal and authentic refuge. Taking the form of hollow logs and tree trunks—the child's dream of perfect shelter—they offer the image of a natural hideout. But they also suggest the condition of last resort: for the fugitive, the misanthropist and the disenfranchised."

Source: Acquisitions Justification