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Van Halm, Renée
Person · 1949 -

Renée Van Halm is a Canadian visual artist and arts educator best known for her installations, paintings, and collages. Born on July 11, 1949, in Badhoevedorp, Netherlands, Van Halm immigrated with her family to Canada in 1953. Van Halm graduated from high school in North Vancouver in 1967 and enrolled in the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art + Design). Van Halm studied printmaking with Bob Evermon and Gary Bowden and graduated with honors in 1975, after taking time off to travel in Africa, Asia, and Europe from 1968-1971. While in school, Van Halm was an Adult Education Instructor for the North Vancouver School Board (1973-1974) and Vancouver School of Art (1974-1975). Van Halm was a founding student member of the Malaspina Printmakers Society in Vancouver (1974). In 1975, Van Halm moved to Montréal to attend Concordia University, where she earned her MFA in 1977 after studying under Guido Molinari and Irene Whittome. At this time, Van Halm worked as a Teaching Assistant at Concordia, and an Instructor at the Montréal Museum School of Art and Design. Van Halm was the Director of Galerie Optica (1977-1979), a contemporary art gallery in Montréal, where she curated and/or coordinated exhibitions including Suzy Lake, Bill Vazan, Robert Walker, Miroslav Maler, Pierre Boogaerts, and Paul Diamond.

In 1979, Van Halm moved to Toronto, where she helped found Mercer Union, an artist-run centre, and taught painting and drawing courses at York University as a Sessional faculty member (1979-1991). Van Halm also taught at the Banff School of Fine Arts (Banff, Alberta) as visiting faculty (1982) and the Associate Head (1984), and at the Ontario College of Art (Toronto) where she was the Course Director (1988-1989).

Van Halm was active in the Toronto arts community, serving on the Mercer Union Resource Board (1984-1990), Art Gallery of Ontario Canadian Contemporary Acquisitions Committee (1986-1993), Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery Board of Directors (1989-1992), Metropolitan Toronto Public Art Policy Advisory Committee (1990-1992), and various other public art selection committees. Van Halm also worked on projects related to the performing arts, designing and constructing sets for choreographers Denise Fujiwara’s Life Lines (1985) and Paula Ravitz’s Dorothy (1987), and designing costumes for the Clichettes’ play Up Against the Wallpaper (1988), for which Van Halm received a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination.

Van Halm moved back to Vancouver in 1992, when she became an Associate Professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Van Halm taught classes in the Painting Department and was Dean of the School of Visual Arts (1996-1999). Van Halm continued teaching as an Associate Professor until 2008, when she became Interim Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, a position she held until 2010, when she was named Professor Emerita. In Vancouver, Van Halm continued to be active in the arts community, serving on the Vancouver Art Gallery Board of Trustees (1993-1996), Surrey Art Gallery Acquisitions Committee (1998-2001), Vancouver Foundation Arts and Culture Advisory Board (2000-2005), City of Vancouver Public Art Committee (2011-2016), and various selection panels and committees.

Nationally, Van Halm served on Selection Committees for the Canada Council Grant (1980, 1989, 1991, 1994 and 1996), and Canada Council Art Bank (1978, 1980, 1982, and 1991). Van Halm also served as a member of Canada Council’s Visual Arts Advisory Committee (1997-1999) and Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts Board of Governors (2011-2013).
Van Halm has been represented by S.L. Simpson Gallery in Toronto (1986-1998), Equinox Gallery in Vancouver (2000-present) and Birch Contemporary in Toronto (2001-present). Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada, the USA, Italy, Germany, China, England, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia. In addition, her work is held in many public and private collections, including by Air Canada, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montréal, Burnaby Art Gallery, Canada Council Art Bank, Government of Canada Global Affairs, Kamloops Art Gallery, Musée d’art contemporain in Montréal, National Gallery of Canada, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Van Halm has been commissioned to provide pieces for the Keesee Office Building (now Kirkpatrick Bank) in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the South Hill community in Vancouver, the Joyce-Collingwood Skytrain Station in Vancouver, the Façade Festival at the Vancouver Art Gallery in Vancouver, and the West Vancouver Art Gallery in West Vancouver.

Throughout her career, Van Halm participated in numerous guest lectures, visiting artist series, and residencies, including at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax (1980), University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta (1982, 1984, 1988, 1995, 1999, 2002); Emily Carr College of Art, Vancouver (1984, 1988, 1991, 1992); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1986); Cité internationale des Arts, Paris (1990); Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York (1999); Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Alberta (2000); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2002); Vancouver Island School of Art, Victoria, BC (2016); and many others. Van Halm has also spoken on many panels, including at the Western Canadian Museum Conference, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (1983); the Social Theory and Art Conference at York University, Toronto (1990); the John Clark Symposium at the University of Lethbridge (1993); the Yokohama Citizen’s Gallery, Yokohama, Japan (1996); and the Nadiff Bookstore and Gallery, Tokyo (2005).

Van Halm’s work is often a combination of media, blending painting, sculpture, and architecture. Describing her artistic practice, Van Halm has stated that, “Cultural history and how we represent and inhabit architecture are fundamental to my work. Over the years I have looked at many subjects that reflect on art and design practices through the genres of still life and landscape as well as decor, abstraction and pattern.” Van Halm’s work has been inspired by a variety of sources, including early renaissance paintings, media images of disasters and social phenomena, modernist furniture and interior design, film set design, and images from magazines and the internet.

According to Van Halm, her “ongoing interests are with the politics of space, who owns it, who inhabits it and how we, as individuals, define and negotiate our private and public identities in the spaces where we live.” Van Halm currently lives in Vancouver and is continuing her artistic practice.

Mathieu, Paul
Person · 1954 -

Paul Mathieu was born on July 28th, 1954 in Bouchette, Québec to Gertrude Mathieu (née Rondeau) and Raymond Mathieu. Paul Mathieu started making and studying ceramics in 1972 at the age of 18. Mathieu began his ceramics education at the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal to continue for a fourth year at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, Alberta and after graduating in 197, he went on to study for another year at North Staffordshire Polytechnic in Stoke-on Trent, United Kingdom in 1978-79. In 1982, Mathieu attended Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and received a Diploma in Printmaking. He continued pursuing higher education and received two Masters degrees: a Master of Arts (MA) from San Francisco State University (SFSU) in 1984 and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1987.

Mathieu started teaching ceramics in 1976. He taught in Montréal at Le Centre des Arts Visuels from 1976-1980, Cégep du Vieux Montréal from 1980-1981, and L’Université du Québec à Montréal in 1988; at San Francisco State University in 1984; San Miguel, México at the Allende Institute in 1991, and Paris, France at the l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1996. In 1996, Mathieu began teaching at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in the Faculty of Visual and Material Culture and retired as a Professor of Visual Arts in 2020.

Mathieu has lectured on a variety of ceramics-related subjects in Canada and in the USA, including at the National Conference on Education in the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) in 1996, 1998, and 2008, as well as in Japan, China, France, Italy, England, Mexico, and Hungary. Mathieu was invited to be the keynote speaker at the National Ceramics Conference in Australia in 1999, and was a conference presenter in 2009.

Throughout his career, Mathieu has been invited to participate in numerous artist residencies, most notably at the Tama International Residency, Machida, Japan (1994); The Banff Centre for the Arts for the Pop/Mass and Sub Culture artist residency (1996); the East/West International Exchange at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawaii (1998); the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemet, Hungary (2001); the ​​Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute (2003-2005) and The Pottery Workshop Experimental Factory (2007-2008) in Jingdezhen, China; the Huaguang Zibo Bone China Factory in Shandong, China (2009, 2011, 2013-2014); and the Shangyu International Celadon Artists Residency in Shangyu, China (2016). Mathieu has also traveled extensively to China (1996), Peru (2001), England and France (1997) to support his research and writing practice on ceramics.

Mathieu has had reviews, articles, essays, and features published in books, magazines, and exhibition catalogues in Canada, the USA, Europe, Israel, Japan, and China. More specifically, his writing has been published in The Studio Potter in the USA, Ceramics: Art and Perception in Australia, La Revue de la Céramique et du Verre in France, Keramieki Techni in Greece, the National Ceramics Magazine of Israel, as well as Espace Magazine, Artichoke, and Contact in Canada. Additionally, Mathieu has written two books: Sex Pots: Eroticism in Ceramics (A&C Black and Rutgers University Press, 2003), which studies “...erotic ceramics from the Neolithic to today with an emphasis on the work of upward to 100 contemporary artists from all over the world” and CERAMICS:The Art of the Future?: a History and Theory (self-published, 2010), which provides a comprehensive “...overview of the history of ceramics, with an emphasis on contemporary works.” A memoir of the 16 working Trips in China, “Making china in China”, has also been completed.

Mathieu’s achievements and contributions to the field of contemporary ceramics have been widely recognized with numerous awards and fellowships, including: a Voulkos Fellowship at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana (2010); the Vancouver Mayor’s Art Award (2008); the Governor General Award of Visual Arts (2007); the Saidye Bronfman Award for Crafts (2007); and the Chalmers Award for Excellence in Crafts (2000). Mathieu has also received multiple grants through public funding bodies such as the Canada Council for the Arts, to support his work, as well as two SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council) grants in 2007 and 2013.

Mathieu has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in China, Korea, Taiwan, Italy, England, Australia, as well as in the USA and Canada (Montréal, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver) and the USA (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago). His work is held in many private and public collections in North America (Canada and USA), including at the Vancouver Art Gallery; the Musée du Québec, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Musée des Beaux-Arts; and the Gardiner Museum for Ceramic Art in Toronto. Internationally, his work is held in collections at the LA County Art Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Texass, the Arizona State University Art Museum, and the Nelson Fine Arts Center in the USA, as well as in Shigaraki, Japan at the The Museum for Contemporary Ceramic Art, and in London, England at The Victoria & Albert Museum.

Mathieu self-describes his work as “highly decorative yet functional pottery” and is interested in techniques that explore “the limitations and potentials of materials and my needs.” His work engages with broad themes of material and pop culture, conceptualism, art history, religion (specifically Catholicism), identity, and sexuality. Mathieu is widely recognized as one of Canada’s foremost contemporary, francophone ceramic artists.