Fine Arts would like to invite everyone to Gillian Iles' artist talk on Friday, October 2 at 11 a.m. East Campus Hall 1220.
Gillian's ideas draw from current events, both globally and locally, and their relationship to individual experience. She finds commentary within power dynamics, social constructs and systems of belief related to colonial Western culture; particularly their manufactured existence, illusionary value, tenuous persistence and questionable motives. Contradiction and precarity are relevant at all stages – within idea, material choices and methods of presentation. Gillian’s practice spans painting, sculpture, constructions, sound & video. Installations merge real and illusionary space into a composite of realities and points of view. Often large-scale, her installations respond to the opportunities of a space and ways to implicate the viewer.
Since 1997, Gillian has exhibited in public institutions, artist-run centres and commercial galleries in Europe, USA, South America and Canada. She is a founding member of two artist collective galleries in Toronto - Propeller and Loop, and has been with Red Head Gallery collective since 2012. She teaches at OCAD University, Sheridan College and the Toronto School of Art in Canada.
Artwork by Gillian Iles, detail of Glorious Catastrophe installation, 2026. Photo credit: Jeremie Warshafsky.