Diana Thorneycroft: Black Forest (village)

diana thorneycroft Black Forest (village)

Vernon Public Art Gallery October 10 - December 19, 2019

Vernon Public Art Gallery 3228 - 31st Avenue, Vernon BC, V1T 2H3 www.vernonpublicartgallery.com 250.545.3173

Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Vernon Public Art Gallery 3228 - 31st Avenue, Vernon, British Columbia, V1T 2H3, Canada October 10 - December 19, 2019 Production: Vernon Public Art Gallery Editor: Lubos Culen Layout and graphic design: Vernon Public Art Gallery Copy editing: Kelsie Balehowsky Cover image: Birdmen (ranch hands and members of the selection commitee), (detail), 2018, 9 altered G.I. Joes, clay, colour pencil crayon, charcoal, gesso, acrylic paint, gel medium, wood, sinew, rope, rabbit fur, nails, drift wood and found wood,

assorted toys Printing: Get Colour Copies, Vernon, British Columbia, Canada ISBN 978-1-927407-52-3 Copyright Š 2019, Vernon Public Art Gallery All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the Vernon Public Art Gallery. Requests for permission to use these images should be addressed in writing to the Vernon Public Art Gallery, 3228 31st Avenue, Vernon BC, V1T 2H3, Canada.

Telephone: 250.545.3173 Facsimile: 250.545.9096 Website: www.vernonpublicartgallery.com The Vernon Public Art Gallery is a registered not-for-profit society. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee/RDNO, the Province of BC’s Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch, British Columbia Arts Council, the Government of Canada, corporate donors, sponsors, general donations and memberships. Charitable Organization # 108113358RR.

This exhibition is sponsored in part by:

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts

Financial assistance provided by the Manitoba Arts Council

table of CONTENTS

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Executive Director’s Foreword · Dauna Kennedy

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Introduction · Lubos Culen

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Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Diana Thorneycroft’s Black Forest · David S. Churchill

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Artist Statement · Diana Thorneycroft

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List of Works in The Village

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Images of Works in the Exhibition

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The Village · Installation Details

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Selected Biography · Diana Thorneycroft

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Executive Director’s Foreword

The Vernon Public Art Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Winnipeg artist Diana Thorneycroft titled Black Forest (village). Thorneycroft is an accomplished artist having exhibited various bodies of work across Canada, the United States, Europe, Moscow, Tokyo and Sydney. She has received numerous awards and grants including the 2016 Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction and a Fleck Fellowship from the Banff Centre for the Arts.

This exhibition is a compilation of two bodies of work which allows the viewer to experience her cryptic narrative from different perspectives as the story unfolds from the installations and onto the photographic images. I encourage you to delve deeper into the context of this dark fairy tale world by reading this catalogue which includes writing from VPAG’s Curator, Lubos Culen and guest writer David S. Churchill.

Churchill, an accomplished writer and Professor of History is also the Associate Head of the Department of History, at the University of Manitoba. He is a frequent contributor to Border Crossings Magazine, and lectures on 20th century visual culture.

The Vernon Public Art Gallery would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Province of British Columbia, the Regional District of the North Okanagan, and the BC Arts Council, whose funding enables us to produce exhibitions such as this for the North Okanagan region and interested parties across Canada. This project also received a Canada Council for the Arts grant which will enable us to share this work to galleries and universities across Canada.

We hope you enjoy this work by Diana Thorneycroft.

Dauna Kennedy Executive Director Vernon Public Art Gallery

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Diana Thorneycroft: Black Forest (village)

Diana Thorneycroft’s exhibition at the Vernon Public Art Gallery titled Black Forest (village) brings together a selection of works from her recent bodies of work titled Herd and Black Forest (dark waters). The exhibition parallels some aspects in the mythology of the Black Forest and creates an area to conceptually stage fictional dialogues between the themes of power, violence and ritual, while asking the viewers to consider the human condition and our desires. In many aspects, Thorneycroft’s exhibition accentuates fairytale and folklore stories where the forest is seen as a source of threat, filled with danger where frightful, grim, and ghostly things may transpire.

The exhibition consists of a suite of large and medium scale photographs that depict dark and openended fairy tale narrative(s) complemented with a 12 x 16 foot platform containing architectural constructions (The Village). This diorama installation houses the figures and other props produced between 2015 and 2018 and leading to the creation of the touring exhibition titled Black Forest (dark waters).1 Additional fictitious characters populate the stage in bizarre appearances and context which reference the grotesque and the uncanny. The non-linear narrative structures encourage the viewer to contemplate possible interpretations of meaning according to their own associations and interaction with the subject matter.

Conceptually, Thorneycroft’s exhibition is a result of her multidisciplinary approach to producing work. Primarily working in the field of photography, Thorneycroft constructs dioramas complete with the forms simulating natural environments and populated by figures she creates, often altering existing toy dolls and animals. The completed dioramas are then photographed through the ‘light painting’ process which results in dramatically lit scenes with a wide tonal range of the finished images.2 The digital photographs in the exhibition portray individual or small groupings of characters in forest and outdoor environments. There is always a feeling that something uncanny either transpired or is going to happen. Figures carry objects which can be associated with the propensity for violence such as an axe, a bolt cutter, a rope with a noose, or a whip. Some titles further reinforce dark underpinnings of some character’s possible actions: Old Man Minotaur (unlicensed gelder) or Woodsman (wood gatherer and amputator).

The actual physical installation of The Village situates the narratives in a more social space where different characters are either interacting together or isolated in their solitary pursuits. Both the photographic prints and the actual physical ‘village’ installation offer visual cross references

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between the physically constructed environment and the photographic renderings of its subparts.

This arrangement highlights the levels of separation between the three dimensional diorama with figures and the photographs portraying the figures in their separately staged environments.

Despite generating possible narratives by observing the arranged situations and subject matter of photographic prints, the viewers can interact with the installation in a more direct way. The fact that the characters are in the ‘village’ expands the possibilities for the viewers to connect additional possible narratives and the relationships of village characters.

The combination of artistic mediums – photography and multi-media sculptural installation create an experience for the viewers to contemplate the outcome of possible dialogues. Hints of themes are instilled in the appearance, actions, interaction, and environments the players occupy.

The exhibition as a whole addresses the themes of power struggles, implied violence, and the dark ritualistic aspects that permeate the staged tableaux. Considering the intense emotional impact of some scenes and the phantasmagorical appearance of the protagonists, one can conclude that the work’s narratives parallel the fantastic aspects of dark fairytales. Thorneycroft’s exhibition certainly does not offer easy answers and the narratives are non-linear, layered and not easily readable. At first glance, the stillness of the characters and their appearance and disposition might look almost comical, but as we engage with the work, our associations might be triggered by unsettling scenes invoking the feeling of propensity for violence to happen in the world of hybrid anthropomorphic and animal forms.

Lubos Culen Curator Vernon Public Art Gallery

Endnotes 1 The exhibition titled Black Forest (village) at the Vernon Public Art Gallery is a scaled-down exhibition from the original Black Forest (dark waters) touring exhibition.

2 Light painting is a term describing photographic techniques of moving a light source while taking a long exposure photograph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_painting, accessed August 10, 2019

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Beneath the trees where nobody sees: Diana Thorneycroft’s Black Forest

by David S. Churchill “O, Ratty!” he cried. “I’ve been through such times since I saw you last, you can’t think! Such trials, such sufferings, and all so nobly borne! Then such escapes, such disguises, such subterfuges, and all so cleverly planned and carried out! Been in prison — got out of it, of course! Been thrown into a canal — swam ashore! Stole a horse — sold him for a large sum of money!

Humbugged everybody — made ’em all do exactly what I wanted! Oh, I am a smart Toad, and no mistake!”

In Kenneth Grahame’s beloved children’s book, The Wind in the Willows, Ratty and Toad are the model of Edwardian adventurers, shaken out of their comfortable cottages, their flower gardens, and their genteel village life. This pastoral tale of anthropomorphic animals wearing caps and waistcoats, rowing boats, having picnics, and driving roadsters provided readers with an image of a world slipping away. As such the book is a narrative of a seemingly contemporary world – a place of green woods and golden fields – a world that was, nonetheless, disappearing in order to build the factories, mills, smokestacks, and ironworks of industrial society.

Woodland animals have long been deployed as a cultural antidote against the cruel stress of modern life. If Grahame is offering us escape, respite, and a sentimental past, artist Diana Thorneycroft in Black Forest (dark waters), is forcing us to consider the inherent cruelty of life and survival, within a bucolic and romantic ecology. Here we see the imminence of death in a precarious world, as well as a possibly dystopic future created by an environmental catastrophe.

One of Thorneycroft’s great strengths is to take the familiar, particularly the world of children’s toys and the nostalgic motifs of department store holiday windows, and get us to cast a critical gaze.

We are asked to lean in and examine what at first seems like sentimentalized scenes, populated with cute characters from our childhood. Instead, we see these nostalgic toys transformed into chimaeras through mutations, cruel experimentation, and vivisection. These hybrid beings, made of the distorted parts of humans and other animals, have an anthropomorphic integrity but we know not how they came to be. Thorneycroft’s Black Forest seems like the feral domain of creatures torn from the pages of H.G. Wells’ classic novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. Like Moreau’s conjoined human-animal creations, Thorneycroft blurs the distinction between humans and non-humans.

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Yet, at a deeper level, her use of familiar toy animals forces us to recognize that a mutation and distortion has already taken place – that a horse with twisted legs and elongated spiked tongue is no less real then a so-called “Disneyfied” horse; that Grahame’s Mr. Toad is, no more nor less, an authentic and constructed creature than Thorneycroft’s “Herd Girl”. Both are in fact altered creatures, reordered and re-imagined by human agency and deployed in literary and visual genres for their affective and aesthetic power.

Black Forest (village) is both an exhibit of photographs as well as the installation of a large threedimensional miniature “Village.” Indeed, it is in the exacting detail of The Village that we see the “houses of pain,” the generative site for the forest creatures, as well as their homes, and spaces of gathering and leisure. The Village is the cultural stage for the creatures, replete with a clothesline of flayed tongues, torture chambers, and the machinery of coercion and vivisection. It is also a place where everyday life occurs, where spaces of conviviality, companionship and mutual aid are present. The phrase “It takes a village” is thus recontextualized in a way that complicates its romantic sentiment, reminding us of the dark side of communitarian life.

Thorneycroft’s images are exacting, bathed in a painterly light that provides the figures with a radiant glow and a crouching darkness. The figures themselves juxtapose this beautiful chiaroscuro effect. Here are no cute creatures wearing bowties checking their pocket-watches, but something stranger, darker, and filled with an aura of menace. Each of the photographs has a narrative, one that expresses the absurd, and challenges our visual expectations.

In Deity (on fire) a herd of horses stands in witness as flames erupt along the radiuses of a burning circle. At the centre atop a stone pyre is a creature – legs akimbo, upturned, supplicant – that is at once similar and different from the observant horses. Is this a sacrifice? Or the imminent death of a God? In either case, we are spectators to an ending, one that has ritualized power, even if the symbols elude our understanding. The darkness accentuates the sense of pagan dramaturgy, even as we wonder about the plight of the creature. Is the “deity” dead, is this a funeral? Or is this a slaughter of an innocent? Could this be the ceremonial destruction of a creature that is different than the herd, specifically an act which demarcates belonging and sameness among the horses, through the spectacle death of the other? Thorneycroft leaves it to us to ruminate and interpret.

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We know that the herd and the Deity are separate, distinct, and caught in a liminal act whose effect is unknown and perhaps unknowable.

Thorneycroft insists that bodies have meaning; that the shapes of arms, legs, skin, tongues and hooves are the material with which she works. This exacting taxidermy of her figurines resonates within a number of registers. First, it questions the fundamental naturalness of animals in the wilderness, illustrating that bodies are augmented, stitched together, operated upon, transplanted and altered. Additionally, Thorneycroft reminds us that idealized figures – a staple within the history of fine art – are simply representational concepts that elide and exclude the diverse reality of our living forms.

The photograph Woodsman (wood gatherer and amputator) has a bifurcated narrative. In the background is a scene of predator and prey, the crouching cougar looks down upon a single fawn.

The large cat is ready to pounce and the young fawn is vulnerable and alone in the wood – here the circle of life is about to make its bloody yet natural turn. It is the foreground image that has us rethink the ethical dynamics of this scene. We see the Woodsman feeding a spotted white ungulate with one hand while holding a concealed axe in the other. Is this a tender act of care? Or the Woodsman’s ruse to draw in the animal for an easy kill? The cougar and fawn are recognizable animals, the woodsman and the ungulate however are strange and unfamiliar. Thorneycroft uses focused light to accentuate and reveal their pale alien features. Where the actions of the cougar are driven by instinct, the Woodsman is engaged in the classic paradox of animal husbandry: on the one hand the care and nurturing of an animal and on the other its inevitable demise for our instrumental usage.

Thorneycroft’s ambivalence, her deft talent for creating scenes whose meaning is underdetermined and perplexing, images that evoke emotions, even as we struggle to interpret the scenes before us, is part of the visual language of contemporary surrealism. Violence, trauma, the asymmetry of power matched with sentimentalized and romanticized ideals, these are all part of our world as much as the landscape of Thorneycroft’s Black Forest. In her strikingly beautiful photographs we see the inconsistencies of our everyday lives, things we struggle to reconcile, as we react to and interpret our lived experience. Wandering with Thorneycroft through her village alleys and the clearings of her phantasmagoric forest are, thus, not journeys away from our reality into the strange, but rather an inward voyage to confront the psychic life of our contradictory modern existence.

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David S. Churchill is a Professor of History, and Associate Head of the Department of History, at the University of Manitoba where he teaches the History of the United States. He is the past Director of the University of Manitoba Institute of the Humanities, a Rockefeller Humanities Fellow at Columbia University in New York, and an Associate of the Wilson Institute of Canadian History at McMaster University, Hamilton ON. A curator, he is the co-founder of the Hole in the Wall Gallery and the Box Gallery, a frequent contributor to Border Crossings Magazine, as well as a lecturer on 20th century visual culture.

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Black Forest (village)

“Dangerous as it is, the forest is the place where society’s conventions no longer hold true.”

The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World by Jack Zipes (1988).

The Black Forest is the area in Germany where many of the folklore stories the Brothers Grimm wrote about originated. It was also a place I called home for four years. As a child my family lived on a Canadian military base near Solingen, Germany. The Black Forest was my playground and had a profound influence on my development.

Despite being warned by our parents we were never to go beyond the safe confines of the military base, my siblings and I would “jump the fence” and take our bikes deep into the woods. There we would discover abandoned lookout towers, bunkers and trenches, and integrate them into our games. I will never forget the mixture of emotions I felt: uneasiness because of the ruins’ history, fear because of the stories we’d been told, anxiety because we were disobeying our parents, awe because the dark forest was spectacular in its beauty, and sheer joy because we were having fun.

Understanding the uncanny (in the simplest of terms), as a mixture of fear and delight, I believe my endless play in the Black Forest is one of the reasons I am compelled to engage these complex and often contradictory emotions in my work. I am drawn to the grotesque for the same reason, as it too is an oscillation between the oppositional feelings of attraction and repulsion.

In many fairytale and folklore stories, the forest is seen as a source of threat, filled with danger where horrible things happen to innocent people. One might assume, then, that the village would be the opposite; a place where people feel safe and secure. However, the installation Black Forest (village) is more like a pre-Lent medieval carnival, a time when the natural order of things were flipped inside out and upside down. Leading the chaos are the actions of the inhabitants of the village and beyond; part human, part animal, these “herdsmen” play on the edge of decorum by embracing the grotesque and transgressing boundaries of the culturally normative. Embedded within the unfolding narrative, which remains purposefully cryptic, extraordinary beauty bumps up against a dark undertone of violence. It is my intent is to keep things unsettled.

Diana Thorneycroft

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black forest (village) works in the exhibition

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The Village, 2015 - 2018, mixed media installation, 54” high x 12’ wide x 16’ long

The Village 2015 - 2018

1.

2.

Ring Boy’s Stand, 2017 Stand: wood, string, rusty nails, bolts, matches, fabric, witch’s hair, metal horse bit Ring boy: altered G.I.Joe, clay, colour pencil crayon, lace, gel medium

3.

Shaman’s Hut, 2018 wood, pigeon head, rabbit fur, doll hand, clay, paper, pencil crayon, cardboard, nails, bolts, glue, altered doll (inside)

4.

Hugo’s Prison, 2017 - 2018 Prison: wood, cardboard, bamboo, wood filler, hardware, sinew, fur, wire, paper, string, colour pencil crayon, gesso, charcoal, glue Hugo: altered G.I.Joe, clay, gesso, acrylic, colour pencil crayon, paper Deity: altered plastic horse, clay, colour pencil crayon, fur, gel medium

5.

Drawing Condo I (with hanging man), 2018 Condo: wood, sinew, hardware, charcoal, colour pencil crayon, fabric, plaster, toy horse leg, rabbit fur, bone, fish tongue, wire, acrylic paint, rabbit foot, dried beets, thread, paper, glue, gesso Hanging Man: altered doll, clay, colour pencil crayon, sinew, fur, toy rubber boot

Mystic Horse (Ama), 2018 altered plastic horse, colour pencil crayon, wood, paint, rabbit fur, diffuser, scented oils, water

The Vet, 2017 Altered doll, clay, plastic horse legs, colour pencil crayon, paper, toy, doctor’s bag, toy lantern

Hugo’s Ladder bamboo, sinew, colour pencil crayon, hardware, paper, glue

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6.

Swing Set (with porn star), 2018 Swing: 5 altered dolls, wood, fur, colour pencil crayon, gesso, chain, sinew, black acrylic paint, glue Porn Star: altered G.I.Joe, clay, colour pencil crayon, gel medium, paper

7.

Tongue Maker’s Workshop, 2018 altered G.I.Joe, wood, clay, colour pencil crayon, toy axe, lace, hardware, string, paper, vegetation, foam, glue, wooden box

8.

Drawing Condo I (with Woodsman and Guillaume’s Centaur), 2018 Condo: wood, hardware, glue, fabric, plastic toy horse leg, dead bird, fur detritus, charcoal, colour pencil crayon, thread, bone, sinew, gesso, rabbit fur Woodsman: altered G.I.Joe, toy horse hair, toy axe, acrylic paint, gesso, pencil, colour pencil crayon, clay Guillaume’s Centaur (inside): altered doll, altered horse, clay, fabric, acrylic, charcoal, paper, gel medium

9.

Vagina Dentata Storage Facility, 2018 Facility with attached “Vagina Dentata”: wood, cardboard, colour pencil crayon, nails, paper, fur, wood, claws, shells, fur, hardware, pins, teeth, wax, sinew, horse hair VD Employee: altered G.I.Joe, clay, colour pencil crayon, gel medium

10.

Drawing Condo II (with Blow Fish Horse), 2018 Condo: wood, hardware, rabbit fur, bone, metal “comb”, sinew, plastic doll leg, dried vegetation, gesso, colour pencil crayon Blow Fish Horse: altered plastic toy horse, graphite, black pencil crayon

11.

Horse with Porcupine Quills, 2015 altered plastic horse, bone, clay, colour pencil crayon, paper, porcupine quills, gel medium

Spot-face Boy, 2018 altered Ken doll, clay, colour pencil crayon, horse hair, horse hooves, toy snakes

Rabbit Fur Ladder, 2018, Wood, gel medium

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12.

Guard on the Edge, 2017 Stand: wood, charcoal, colour pencil crayon, hardware, rusty nails, gesso Guard: altered doll, plastic horse leg, clay, wood, charcoal, colour pencil crayon

13.

Winter Dancing Feeding Station, 2018 Station: hardware, found and reused wood, lace, fabric, thread, rabbit fur, sheep wool, fish bones, colour pencil crayon, gesso, acrylic paint, clay, fake snow figures: 1 altered doll, 3 altered G.I.Joes, clay, colour pencil crayon, gel medium, bugs, wax, sinew, hardware, plastic tubing horses: 5 plastic toy horses, gesso, acrylic paint, colour pencil crayon, found objects, gel medium, paper, plastic tubing

14.

Old Man Minotaur (unlicenced gelder), 2016 altered doll, plastic horse legs, clay, paper, colour pencil crayon, toy chain saw, toy bold cutter

15.

Carl the Blind Conductor and the Phocomelia Drum Band, 2018 12 altered G.I.Joes, clay, colour pencil crayon, chalk pastel, paper, acrylic paint, gesso, wood, glue, wax, dried cranberries, leather strips, hardware, sinew, paper, altered feather

16.

Accordian Player, 2016 altered doll, clay, colour pencil crayon, miniature toy accordion

17.

Mother and Daughter, 2017 altered G.I.Joe, altered plastic horse, clay, colour pencil crayon, paper, horse hair, gel medium

18.

Birdmen on Sentinel Poles, 2018 9 altered G.I. Joes, clay, colour pencil crayon, charcoal, gesso, acrylic paint, gel medium, wood, sinew, rope, rabbit fur, nails, drift wood and found wood, assorted toys

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Birdmen (ranch hands and members of the selection committee), 2015, digital photograph

Equestrian (nutritionist), 2016, digital photograph

Diety (on fire), 2017, digital photograph

Guard on the Edge (of the forest and the night), 2017, digital photograph

Forest Ruin (with horse and deer), 2017, digital photograph

Rain and Birches (in Fiddler’s Green), 2017, digital photograph

Ring-boy’s Water Dream, 2017, digital photograph

Old Man Minotaur (unlicensed gelder), 2015, digital photograph

Herd-girl (gardener and memory keeper), 2015, digital photograph

Red-berry Girl (with Grace), 2015, digital photograph

Horse-head Girl (pathologist and pony entertainer), 2015, digital photograph

Shaman’s Hut, 2017, digital photograph

The Vet (and the darkest one), 2017, digital photograph

Storm (mother and daughter), 2017, digital photograph

Spot-face Boy (chef and snake charmer), 2015, digital photograph

The Blind Conductor (of the Phocomelia Drum Band), 2018, digital photograph

The Phocomelia Drum Band, 2018, digital photograph

Tongue Maker (and his habituĂŠs), 2017, digital photograph

Woodsman (wood gatherer and amputator), 2015, digital photograph

Winter Dancing Horses (with accordion playing inseminator), 2017, digital photograph

the village Images of installation details, 2018, mixed media installation at La Maison de la Culture Frontenac, 54” high x 12’ wide x 16’ long.

Photos: Michael Patten

DIANA THORNEYCROFT dianathorneycroft.com

CURRICULUM VITAE

SELECTED GRANTS AND AWARDS (2000-2019) Canada Council for the Arts, Explore and Create: Research and Creation, 2019 Manitoba Arts Council Create Grant, 2019 Winnipeg Film Group First Film Fund, 2019 Manitoba Arts Council Professional Development Grant, 2019 Deep Bay Residency, Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2009, 2007 Winnipeg Arts Council Grant, 2018 Manitoba Arts Award of Distinction, 2016 Manitoba Arts Council Major Arts Grant, 2016, 2012, 2009, 2001, 1997, 1991 Manitoba Arts Council Travel Grant, 2015 Canada Council Assistance to Visual Artists -Long-term, 2007-09 Manitoba Arts Council “A” Grant, 1990,1992, 1996, 2005, 2006 Established Artist Grant, Canada Council, 2003 Most Outstanding Teacher Award, School of Art, University of Manitoba, 2002 Fleck Fellowship, Banff Centre for the Arts, 2001 SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS (2000 – 2019) 2019 2018-19 2017

2016 2015 2014-13

Black Forest (the village). Vernon Public Art Gallery, Vernon, BC Black Forest (dark waters). Maison de la Culture Frontenac, Montreal QC; Art Gallery of Burlingon, Burlington, ON; Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba,

Brandon, MB Carnival of Tails, Tongues and other Protrusions. Yellow Box Gallery, Frederiction, NB Pony Portraits: Pretty, Powerful and Pugnacious. X-cues, Winnipeg, MB O Canada (I’m sorry). Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, AB, Strathcona County Art Gallery @ 501, Edmonton, AB Herd. The Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery, Owen Sound, ON; Ottawa School of Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON Canadians and Americans (best friends forever... it’s complicated). Paris Photo Los Angeles, LA Canadians and Americans (best friends forever...its’ complicated). Fabien Castanier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Art Mûr, Montreal, QC; Michael Gibson Gallery, London, ON 60

2011- 13 A People’s History. The Mann Gallery, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan; Art Gallery of

Calgary, Calgary, AB; Art Mûr, Montreal,Quebec; Art Gallery of Regina,

Regina, SK

Diana Thorneycroft’s Extraordinary Stories. Caustic Landscapes of Canadian

Imaginary. Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France 2010-11 Diana Thorneycroft: Canada, Myth and History. Windsor Art Gallery, Windsor, ON

The Reach Gallery Museum, Abbotsford, BC; Winnipeg Art Gallery,

Winnipeg, MB

Diana Thorneycroft’s Canadian Moments: Awkward and Atrocious, Carleton

University Gallery, Ottawa, ON 2009 The Canadiana Martyrdom Series. Ottawa School of Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON

Diana Thorneycroft: Canada, Myth and History. McMichael Canadian Art

Collection,Kleinburg, ON 2008 Group of Seven Awkward Moments. Poor Michael’s Bookshop, Art and Cafe,

Onanole, MB; Art Mûr, Montreal, QC; Michael Gibson Gallery, London, ON 2006 There Must be 50 Ways to Kill Your Lover. G+ Gallery, Toronto, ON 2005-06 The Canadiana Martyrdom Series. Skew Gallery, Calgary, AB; Lee Ka-sing Gallery,

Toronto, ON; Art Mûr, Montreal, QC 2004-06 The Doll Mouth Series. Art Mûr, Montreal, QC; Douglas Udell Gallery,

Vancouver, BC; Rodman Hall, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON;

7th Internationale Fototage Mannheim/ Ludwigshafen, Germany; Gallery

Connexion, Fredericton, NB; Gallery 1C03,Winnipeg, MB TWO & THREE PERSON exhibitions 2016 La-la-Llama Land (with Arianna Boss), The Box Gallery, Cindy Klassen Recreaton

Centre, Winnipeg, MB

Altered States: The Ordinary Transformed (with Aganetha Dyck), Buhler Gallery,

Winnipeg, MB 2015 Bees, Beasts and Binaries (with Aganetha Dyck and Reva Stone). Gurevich Fine Art,

Winnipeg, MB 2014 Hogs and Horses (with Michael Boss). Gurevich Fine Art, Winnipeg, MB 2008 Desire and Dominiation :Imagining the Psyche (with Davida Kidd). Nanaimo Art

Gallery, Nanaimo, BC 2002-03 Foul Play (with Michael Boss). Eye Level Gallery, Halifax, NS; Galerie Sans

Nom, Moncton, NB; <SITE>, Winnipeg, MB 1996 On the Skin (with Michael Boss). Ace Art, Winnipeg, MB 61

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS (2000-2019) 2019 Take Two. La Maison des Artiste, Winnipeg, MB

REVOLTING!. The Edge Gallery and Urban Art Centre, Winnipeg, MB

The Female Lens. Christine Klassen Gallery, Calgary, AB

Photography in Canada 1960-2000. Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery, Sarnia, ON 2018 The Only Thing We Have In Common Is That Some Of Us Are Nice. Cre8ery Gallery,

Winnipeg, MB 2017 Felled Trees: The Maple Leaf and Canadian Identity. Canada House, Trafalgar

Square, London, UK

Photography in Canada: 1969 - 2000. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON

Furthermore. La Maison des artistes visuels, Winnipeg, MB 2016 Friends and Family. Fabien Castanier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Landscapes Restructured. Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, AB

Point of View: Photographs Inspired by the Canadian Rockies, Whyte Museum,

Banff, AB 2015 Texas Contemporary 2015. Art Mûr, Houston, Texas

A Conversation of Memories.Typography Cultural Center, Krasnodar, Russia

Be a Sport. Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, ON

Survivance III. La Galerie, Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain, Winnipeg, MB

Under-Exposed. Stewart Hall Art Gallery, Centre culturel de Pointe-Claire,

Pointe-Claire, QC

Attitudes in Latitudes - Northern Wild Explores the Tropics. ArtCenter/South

Florida, Miami, Florida

Looking Back at You: Masks by Artists. Confederation Centre of the Arts,

Charlottetown, PEI

Getting Naked. THEMUSEUM, Kitchener, ON 2014 Frost-bitten Mosquito-slapping Trolley Tippers. The General Fine Craft, Almonte, ON

Comic Relief. Wasserman Projects, Birmingham, Michigan

Relative-Connections. The Mann Art Gallery, Prince Albert, SK

Canadiana. The Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, SK 2013 FIAC 2013. Françoise Paviot Gallery, Paris, France

Je T’aime...Moi non plus. Muba, Tourcoing, France 2012 Paris Photo 2012. Françoise Paviot Gallery, Paris, France

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg,MB

My Winnipeg. Plug In I.C.A., Winnipeg, MB 2011 Paris Photo 2011. Françoise Paviot Gallery, Paris, France 62

2011

FIAC 2011. Françoise Paviot Gallery, Paris, France Toys Gone Rogue. Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, SK My Winnipeg. La Maison Rouge, Paris, France; Musée International des Arts

Modeste Sete, France

Play>Nation: Canada’s Outodoor Culture Exhibition. Toronto, ON

Bestial Encounters. Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, MB

From our Collections: the Photography of Holly King, Dyan Marie & Diana Thorneycroft. Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB 2010 Exploded View. Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON 2009 Hinterlands. Harbourfront, Toronto, ON 2009 Civilization and its Discontents. Junction Arts Festival, Toronto, ON

Arena: The Art of Hockey. Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, ON

Leaving Olympia: Unveiling the Idealized Nude. Edmonton Art Gallery,

Edmonton, AB. 2008 BUN. Kumukumu Gallery, New York, New York

Darkside - Photographic Desire and Sexuality Photographed. Fotomuseum

Winterhur, Winterhur, Switzerland 2008 Arena: The Art of Hockey. Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, NS; The

Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, AB

Subconscious City. The Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, MB 2007 Act of Faith. Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen, Netherlands 2006 Well Hung. White Walls Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2006 Illegal Art. Pacific Northwest College of Arts, Portland, Oregon; Art and Culture

Center of Hollywood, Florida

Hand in Hand. Minnesota Center for Photography, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Faking Death. Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY 2005 Folio Revisited. The Whyte Museum, Banff, AB 2004 Latitudes. Academy of Art, Belgrade, Serbia

Faces and Figures of the Nickel,.The Nickel Arts Museum, Calgary, AB 2003 Not So Cute & Cuddly: Dolls & Stuffed Toys in Contemporary Art, Ulrich Museum,

Wichita, Kansas 2002-03 Illegal Art. Gallery 313, New York, N.Y.; SFMOMA, San Francisco, L.A.; Nexus

Gallery, Philadelphia, PA 2002 Korper - SEXUALITÄT. Fotogalerie Wiens, Vienna, Austria 2000 The Liminal Body. Australian Center for Photography, Sydney, Australia

Curator’s Choice. The Concept Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA

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SELECTED REVIEWS (2000-2019) 2019 Volmers, Eric. “Exposure focuses on female photographers with new group exhibit”,

Calgary Herald, Feb. 2 2018 Gessell, Paul. “Bosch’s sister”, Galleries West, July 9

Wong, Kiddy. “Pony tales and enchanged forests”, Winnipeg Free Press, June 22 2017 Lynn, Robbie. “Penises and protrusions in the Yellow Box Gallery”, The Aquinian, Dec. 5

Gessell, Paul. “Diana Thorneycroft’s ‘Alternative Facts’ “, Galleries West, March 12 2016 Gessell, Paul. “Thorneycroft Does It Again with Grotesque Gallopers”, Ottawa Magazine,

Sept. 23

Gowan, Rob. “Herd takes over TOM”, Owen Sound Sun Times, March 31 2015 Cooper, Anneliese. “Barbies, Punks and Astronauts: 7 Must-See Booths at Paris Photo

Los Angeles”, Blouin Artinfo, May 1 Munro, Cait. “7 Reasons Why Paris Photo LA Is the Ultimate California Art Fair”, Artnet

News, May 1

Pereira, Lorenzo. “Paris Photo LA 2015 Highlights”, Widewalls, May 1

Adams, James. “Baring it all: Canada Council Art Bank’s collection of nudes on display”,

The Globe and Mail, March 15

Simpson, Peter. “Saucy horses and downtown polar bears: New Manitoba art in

Almonte”, Ottawa Citizen, September 19 2014 Gessell, Paul. “ARTFUL BLOGGER: Frost-bitten, Mosquito- slapping Trolley-tippers”,

Ottawa Magazine, September 5

Hodges, Michael H. Birmingham’s ‘Comic Relief’ presents amusing, provocative trio, The

Detroit News, July 16 2013 Cochrane, Steven Leyden.”Good things in small packages”, Winnipeg Free Press, July 18 2012 Rattray, Michael. “Diana Thorneycroft: A People’s History”, C Magazine, 113

McCoy, Heath. “Photos present dark history”, Calgary Herald, Feb. 16 2011 Delgado, Jérôme. Détecteurs de mensonges, Le Devoir, Nov. 12, 2011

Desmet, Natalie. “My Winnipeg”, esse, 74

Sommers, Michelle. “Thriving on the Ambiguities of Identity”, Vie des Arts, Numéro 223 2010 Griffin, Kevin. “Diana Thorneycroft Gets Awkward with the Group of Seven”, The Vancouver Sun, Oct. 1

Michaud, Anne. “Awkward and Atrocious a la Galerie d’art de l’Université Carleton

d’Ottawa”, Le Devoir, June 7 2010 Gillmor, Alison.”Tim Horton meets Tom Thomson for strange brew”, Winnipeg Free Press,

July 15

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2009 Adams, James. “Bob and Doug meet Tom and Lawren”, The Globe and Mail, Aug. 1 2009 Whyte, James. “Great Canadian art finally good for a laugh”, Toronto Star, July 26

Tousley, Nancy. “Exhibit a satirical poke at Canadiana”, Calgary Herald, March 9 2008 Dewolfe, Stacey. “Stuck tongues and eerie eyes”, Montreal Mirror, Nov. 6

Sandals, Leah. “If it doesn’t kill you…” National Post, Oct. 30

Redfern, Christine. “The hokey and the sublime.” The Montreal Gazette, Oct. 11

Rodes, Richard. “Diana Thorneycroft: Tragicomic Canadiana”, Canadian Art, September 11 2006 Hellman, Michel. “Entre sensualité et dégoût”, Le Devoir, September 24, 2006

Campbell , James D. .“The Canadiana Martyrdom Series.”, C.V. Photo, Spring Issue

K. Lee Sohn. “Creativity in the Corporate Age”, Miami New Times, March 9

Mary Abbe. “Two photography exhibits come to Minneapolis galleries”, Star Tribune,

Feb. 21 2003 Chris Gaither. “Art Attack”, The Boston Globe, July 14

Matthew Hollett. “Martyr’s Murder, Diana Thorneycroft”, Arts Atlantic, Issue 75, Winter

2003

Chris Nelson. “An Exhibition borrows brazenly”, The New York Times, January 11 2002 Robert Enright. “Too close for comfort”, The Globe and Mail, July 31

Valerie Fortney. “Glorious decay & disarray”, Calgary Herald, Jan. 11 2001 Declan Sheehan. “Diana Thorneycroft: Le Corps, lecons et camouflage”, Paris Photo

Magazine, Issue 14/15

Alan Kellogg. “Rabbit revisited and the artist’s eye”, The Edmonton Journal, Feb. 10 2000 Robert Everett-Green. “Portrait of art as ticking bomb”, The Globe and Mail, Feb. 17 SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Allen, Jan. The Female Imaginary (exhibition catalogue). Kingston: Agnes Etherington Art

Gallery,1994.

Boss, Michael. The Bloody Theatre: Giving Death Its Due and Plohman Angela. At a distance:

Investigation sensorial response (exhibition brochure). St. Norbert Arts and

Cultural Centre,1999.

Carver, Antonio, ed. Blink. Phaidon Press, 2002.

Casper, Jim, ed. The Best of LensCulture Volume 3, Schilt Publishing, 2019 Churchill, David. Canadians and Americans (best friends forever...it’s complicated), exhibition

catalogue, Michael Gibson Gallery, London, Ontario, 2013 Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003.

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Dunbar, Elizabeth. Not So Cute and Cuddly: Dolls & Stuffed Toys in Contemporary Art. Ulrich

Museum of Art, 2003.

Foster, Alasdair. “Diana Thorneycroft: Long Shadows in the North”. PhotoWorld, China, August

2015 Enright, Robert. “ Ideas of North”. Border Crossings , Issue No. 104, 2007 ______.“Rituals of Outrage”. Border Crossings Issue No. 72, pp. 5-6. ______. “Memory Feeder: Subjects and Objects in the Art of Diana Thorneycroft”. Border

Crossings, vol.15, no.3 (Summer 1996), pp. 22-33. ______. “Touching the Self: Diana Thorneycroft Pura: Recent Photographs”. Border Crossings,

vol.9, no. 4 (Fall 1990), pp. 68-75 Fulton, Keith Louise. Opening the Body to Questions, and Shirley Madill. Staging the Self

(exhibition brochure). Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, Spring 1991 Garneau, David. Diana Thorneycroft: A People’s History (exhibition brochure). The Art Gallery of

Regina, 2011 Gilmore, Alison. “Dirty Pretty Things”, Blackflash, Winter, 2009 Greenhill, Pauline. Natalka Husar and Diana Thorneycroft versus the Law: A Critical Feminist

Consideration of Intellectual Property and Artistic Practice, Project Muse:

Scholarly Journals Online, 2008 Greenhill, Pauline. “Making Illegal Art: Two Feminist Artists Resist Copyright Law,” in Lisa

Dresdner and Laurel S. Peterson, (Re)Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in

Women’s Experience, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press.c Gustafson, Paula and Carol Williams. Search, Image and Identity: Voicing Our West (exhibition

catalogue). Saskatoon: The Photographers Gallery, 1994 Hatt, Gordon, ed. The Doll Mouth Series, Rodman Hall, University of Brock Press, 2006 Joslin, Russell, ed. Black Forest, Candella Books, 2014 Keshavjee, Serena, ed. Slytod, School of Art Gallery 1.1.1 and The University of Manitoba Press,

1998 Langford, Martha. “In the Playground of Allusion”, Exposure, 1998, Volume 31 3/4 ______. Scissors, Paper, Stone. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007 Lee, Holly. “China Photo & World Net - Xing Danwen & Diana Thorneycroft”, Photo Pictorial, Vol.

426, January 2004, Hong Kong, pp 20-27 Lemecha, Vera, ed. “The Female Grotesque”, Inversions, MAWA, 1998, pp. 13-24 Lipsett, Katherine. “Place of Meaning”, Blackflash, vol. 11, no. 4, (Winter 1993), pp. 4-8 Longchamps, Denis, ed. Black Forest (dark waters), exhibition catalogue, Burlington Art Gallery,

2018 Lovatt, Tom. “On the Skin: Notes Towards a Definition”, Critical Distance, Winnipeg: Ace Art,

Vol.1#19, 1996 66

Madill, Shirley. “Aioria (Dancing with the Spirits in the Pale Moonlight)” , IN VERSIONS, vol.1, no. 2

Fall 1990 ______. New Art From Manitoba, exhibition catalogue,Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1983 Mark, Lisa and Buchanan, Hamish. The Pressing of Flesh, exhibition catalogue, Winnipeg: The

Floating Gallery,1993 McGee, Anne. “Humour and the Development of Canadian Identity in Diana Thorneycroft’s Group

of Seven Awkward Moments”, Imaginations: The Canadian Studies Undergraduate

Journal at the University of Toronto, March 23, 2010 Melis, Wim. Act of Faith, Amsterdam, Idea Books, 2007 Meskimmon, Dr. Marsha. “The Monstrous and the Grotesque”, Make, no. 72 (October-November

1996), pp. 6-11 _______. The Art of Reflection: Women Artists’ Self Portraiture in the Twentieth Century.

London: Scarlet Press, 1996 Thorneycroft, Diana. My Best Shot. Black Flash, vol 29 Issue 3, September - December 2012 _______. Fowl is Fair & Fair is Fowl. Border Crossings, vol.5, no.2, Spring 1986 Townsend, Chris. Vile Bodies: The Crises of Looking. Munich: Prestel-Verlag,1998 Walsh, Meeka, ed., The Body, its lesson and camouflage. Winnipeg: Bain and Cox, 2000

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