Shirley Wiitasalo

Shirley Wiitasalo is interested in exploring how the medium of painting, considering its long and complex history, affects the subject matter and how it is interpreted by the viewer. “Paint itself is so simple,” Wiitasalo noted to the National Gallery of Canada, “It’s a substance with colour, and you apply it in different ways. It’s very elemental in that sense.” Though largely self-taught, Wiitasalo studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design from 1967-68. She won the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts in 2011, the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation Annual Prize in 1998, the Toronto Arts Award for Visual Art in 1993, and is currently an associate professor at the John. H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. Her art has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at the Power Plant in Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, as well as in group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, Museum Haus Lange in Germany, 49th Parallel in New York, and the National Museum of Art in Tokyo.