Biography

As a media and visual artist, I create works in video, film, photography (digital and analog), installation, performance, sculpture, web art, and in combinations of these media. The issues and ideas I investigate usually dictate which ‘tools’ I use and what form the works take. My art practice, in the broadest sense, revolves around an exploration of the complex processes by which individuals become constituted as subjects. Through a combination of personal narrative, critical analysis, gender politics, and strategies of appropriation, my work often examines how various representations and discourses shape our understanding of ourselves within the world. Frequently my work also seeks to undermine assumptions about what objects and forms are appropriate as art while encouraging contemplation of taken-for-granted aspects of everyday life.

My work has been exhibited and screened in North America and internationally, including solo exhibitions at The McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, ON, MKG127 in Toronto, ON, and Rodman Hall Art Centre in St. Catherines, ON, and Stride Gallery in Calgary, AB. My performance work has been featured at AXENÉO7 in Gatineau, QC and at Struts Gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick and my film/video work has screened at Documenta Madrid, Paris Feminist and Lesbian Film Festival, Toronto Urban Film Festival, San Francisco Documentary Festival, NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival, and Museum of Modern Art’s Documentary Fortnight. I have been awarded grants from the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council, and in 2012 received a City of Hamilton Arts Award in Visual Arts (a career achievement award for established artists). In 2016 my feature length documentary, Dark Horse Candidate, was chosen Best Feature Documentary at the 38^th Big Muddy Film Festival in Carbondale, IL. I live in Hamilton, Ontario and am a Professor of Multimedia at McMaster University. I am represented by MKG127 in Toronto, Ontario.  CV (pdf)

Shake-n-Make Collective Biography

Shake-n-Make is a queer art collective (members Claudia B. Manley and Liss Platt) based in Hamilton, Ontario that endeavours to elevate home hobby crafts from the 70s into a playful and critical contemporary art practice. Shake-n-Make’s first solo show, I Can’t Stop This Feeling: Crisis, Comfort, and Craft was exhibited at MKG127 in Toronto in 2009. Since then, the collective has exhibited at numerous venues in Ontario, including The Art Gallery of York University (Toronto), Rodman Hall Art Gallery (St. Catherines), b Contemporary (Hamilton, ON), and The Artists Newsstand (Toronto). Shake-n-Make has also participated in A Handmade Assembly in Sackville, New Brunswick, as well as Supercrawl and TH&B2 in Hamilton and received two visual artist grants from the Ontario Arts Council. Shake-n-Make is represented by MKG127 in Toronto.