Artist

Eric Cameron

Eric Cameron was born in England in 1935 and, following studies in Painting at Durham University and in Art History at London University, taught for ten years at Leeds University before moving to Canada as Chair of the Art Department at the University of Guelph in 1969.

It was his last three years at Guelph that saw his most intensive video activity as well as the beginnings of his critical writing. Two tapes were shown in Videoscape at the Art Gallery of Ontario, while the installation Keeping Marlene out of the Picture was presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery in a two-person exhibition with Noel Harding, which travelled to the National Gallery of Canada and the Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax; it is presently on view in Traffic at the Blackwood Gallery in Mississauga.

In 1976 he took up a position at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where, under the influence of the layer paintings of colleagues such as Jeffrey Spalding, Garry Neil Kennedy and Mary Scott, he began the Thick Paintings for which he is best known. These continued after his final move to the University of Calgary in 1987. Meanwhile, video continued to feature in his installations, and his videotapes continued to be shown in Canada and overseas (
Analogue at the Tate Britain). He remade one old "Contact Piece" in colour to accompany a small installation of Thick Paintings at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Eric Cameron was the recipient of the Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 1994 and a Governor General's Award in 2004. In 2007 he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada. He has completed fifty-one years of university-level teaching and continues to teach full-time. He is represented by the Trépanier Baer Gallery in Calgary, who have just sold one of his Thick Paintings to the French National Art Collection. Other works, including videotapes, are held in museum collections across Canada.

Artist Code: 201

Videography

Touching Ronya

1998, 48:00 minutes, colour, Sound

Touching Ronya

1998, 48:00 minutes, colour, Sound

Keeping Marlene Out Of The Picture

1976, 03:35 minutes, B&W, English

Numb Bares 1

1976, 14:53 minutes, B&W, English

Contact Piece: A Nude Model (Donna)

1976, 30:00 minutes, B&W, English

Insertion (an excerpt)

1976, 05:00 minutes, B&W

Critical Writing

The Durable Idiom
by Nancy Tousley. Border Crossings, Fall 2011, v. 30, no. 3.
Cutting It: Accessible Video Editing
by Chris Meigh-Andrews. A History of Video Art, 2006.
The Lingering Present: Canadian Video Art in its Youth: 1968-1986
by Lisa Steele. Analogue, 2006. Preston: Electronic and Digital Art Unit, 2006.
Art scene veterans finally get their due: Recipients of this...
by Sarah Milroy. The Globe and Mail, Mar. 4, 2004.
Video Primer: A Series of 5 Video Programs
by Michelle Jacques. Video Primer, 2001. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2001.
Critics' Choice: Video Primer: The Medium
The Globe and Mail, Apr. 28, 2001.
Eric Cameron: Painter, Sculptor, Video Artist
by Roger Matuz. Contemporary Canadian Artists, 1997. Toronto: Gale Canada, 1997.
Notes for Video Art
by Eric Cameron. VIDEO re/VIEW: The (best) Source for Critical Writings on Canadian Artists' Video, 1996. Toronto: Art Metropole and Vtape, 1996.
Sex, Lies and Lawn Grass
by Eric Cameron. Sex, Lies, and Lawn Grass, 1994. Toronto: Art Metropole, 1994.
Sex, Lies and Lawn Grass
Sex, Lies, and Lawn Grass/Notes for Video Art, 1994. Toronto: Art Metropole, 1994.
Corpus Loquendi: body for speaking
by Jan Peacock. Halifax: Dalhousie Art Gallery, 1994.
Corpus Loquendi/Body for Speaking: Body-Centred Video in Halifax...
by Jan Peacock. Halifax: Dalhousie Art Gallery, 1994.
First-generation video
by Carole Corbeil. The Globe and Mail, June 14, 1986.
Introduction
by Renee Baert. Vintage Video: Early Canadian Video Art to 1974, 1986. Toronto: Artculture Resource Centre, 1986.
Video In Canada: In Search of Authority
by Renee Baert. From Sea to Shining Sea, 1986. Toronto: The Power Plant, 1986.
Letters
by Renee Baert et al. Parallelogramme, 1986, v. 11, no. 3.
Video in Canada: Process and Production
by Renée Baert. Video '84, - Recontres Vidéo Internationales de Montreal, 1984, v. sept.
Temporal Realities: Eric Cameron and Noel Harding
by Peggy Gale. Parachute, Spring 1978, no. 10.
Video Art 78
by Steve Partridge and David Hall. Video Art 78, May 6 Spring, 1978.
Structural Videotape in Canada
by Eric Cameron. Video Art: An Anthology, 1976. Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.
Dan Graham: Apperearing in Public
by Eric Cameron. Artforum, Nov. 1976, v. 15, no. 3.
Colin Campbell: La belle histoire d'Art Star: Colin Campbell: The...
by Eric Cameron. vie des arts, Spring 1975, v. 20, no. 78.
The Video Show
by David Hall. Art and Artists, May 1975, v. 10, no. 110/2.
La vidéographie dans un contexte d'art
by Eric Cameron. Vie des arts, Fall 1975, v. 20, no. 80.
Videotape & The University Art Programme
by Eric Cameron. Studio International, June 1974, v. 187, no. 967.
Video as Art
by Eric Cameron. Video Circuits: An Exhibition of Videotape as Art, 1974. Guelph: S.N., 1974.
The Grammar of the Video Image
by Eric Cameron. Arts Magazine, Dec. 1974, v. 49, no. 4.
Videoscape
by Marty Dunn et al. Toronto Ontario: Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), 1974.