Jane Buyers Bio Jane Buyers was born in Toronto in 1948. She has an honours B.A. in Visual Art from York University (1973) and a Master of Education in History and Philosophy from the University of Toronto (1990). She has taught art since 1976, variously as a lecturer in the history of modern design at George Brown College in Toronto, as a Fine Art instructor at Fanshawe College, the Toronto School of Art, and Guelph University. She was Professor in the Fine Arts department at the University of Waterloo from 1988 to 2010. Solo exhibitions in pubic galleries include the Owens Art Gallery, Sackville, N.B. (1975); the Art Gallery of Hamilton (1984); the Thunder Bay National Exhibition Centre (1986); Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery, Owen Sound (1991); the Canadian Cultural Centre, Rome (1992); the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (1996); Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa (2005); Koffler Gallery Toronto, (2006) amongst others. Group shows include Monumenta at YYZ, Toronto (1982); O KromaZone at Das Institut Unzeit, Berlin (1982); ChromaLiving, with the ChromaZone Collective in Toronto (1983); Graphic Feminism at A Space, Toronto (1986); Living Impressions, Art Gallery of Hamilton (1989); and Second Skin: Looking at the Garden Again, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph (1996); The Single Tree, Museum London (2000); Great Lakes, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto (2001); Into the Woods, Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Waterloo (2006); Pictured: Image and Object in Canadian Sculpture, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (2007-8) as well as many others. Jane Buyers' commissioned public sculptures include Golden Queen Hybrid, RIM Park, Waterloo; John Labatt Barley Field, Waterloo; Between the Acts, King Street Theatre, Kitchener and Agricultura for the Donald Forster Sculpture Park, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph. Jane was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2002. She has been awarded a number of Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council grants. Her work is in many private and public collections including Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; Maclaren Art Centre, Barrie; Ernst & Young Collection; Canada Council Art Bank; National Capital Commission, Governor-General's Residence, Ottawa; National Bank of Detroit; McDonald's Corporation, Chicago and Toronto Dominion Bank. Jane is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto, and Harbinger Gallery, Waterloo. "Evoking human presence through material culture surrogates combined with references to nature, my work embodies the desire to be connected, to make order, to find a meaning. In extended series over years I have used references to clothing, architecture, tools and books, exploring the transformative potential of intellectual and imaginative inquiry. The frequent reference to nature in my work- a tree, a flower, a leaf- is not to nature as "natural", but rather nature as a site of complex, contradictory processes of manipulation and idealization. The botanical imagery I employ is primarily from vintage textiles and domestic objects. This found imagery, romanticized and artificial, and the persistence of certain patterns, embodies a compelling desire for growth and transformation. I am attracted to labour intensive ways of working in which slow, repetitive, meditative activity gradually creates a surface or builds a form. Throughout my practice my choice of materials has been exploratory and intuitive. I have worked with a variety of processes and materials including paper, audio, text, wood, bronze, terracotta and porcelain. I am interested in the intimacy of process- the manipulation of materials, the transformation of one element into another. " The Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art The Canadian Art Database