Artist

Steele & Tomczak

Lisa Steele + Kim Tomczak have worked exclusively in collaboration since 1983, producing videotapes, performances and photo/text works. They have received numerous grants and awards both individually and collaboratively, the latter case including the Bell Canada prize for excellence in Video Art, a Toronto Arts Award and in 2005, a Governor General's Award for lifetime achievement in Visual & Media Arts. They were awarded an Honourary Doctorate by the University of British Columbia (Okanagan) in 2009.
They are co-founders of Vtape, an award-winning media arts centre established in 1983 in Toronto. Both teach at the University of Toronto in The John E. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, where Steele is also the Director, Visual Studies Program.
In September 2012, a major survey of their work The Long Time: the 21st century work of Steele + Tomczak curated by Paul Wong (with a 84 page catalogue), opened at 1965 Gallery and VIVO, Vancouver; the exhibition traveled to A Space Gallery (2013) and is going to The Windsor Art Gallery (2015).
Major public art commissions include: Love Squared (2006) screened on the 2400 square foot video board at Yonge & Dundas Square in Toronto; Falling Up (2006) a video work for the Winnipeg Art Gallery; and, Watertable (2009) a light and sound installation on the Gardiner Expressway (a raised highway) that marks the original shoreline of Lake Ontario at the foot of historic Fort York.
Since 2000, solo exhibitions of their works have taken place at the Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris (2003); Dazibao, Montreal (2008); Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, (2009); Diaz Contemporary, Toronto (2009); WHARF Centre D'art contemporain, Herouxville-St. Clair, France (2010); Le Mois de la Photo a Montreal (2011). In the fall 2010, they were commissioned by the McLaren Art Centre to produce photo/text works that were exhibited on bus shelters in the city of Barrie, Ontario.
Selected group exhibitions and screenings of their work include: City of York Public Gallery, York, England (2000); Trivandrum Video Festival, New Delhi (2003); Beyond/In Western New York, organized by Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo (2005); a focus screening at Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid (2006); Sophia, Bulgaria at the Central Bath House (2008); TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) Future Projections (2009); Akbank Sanat, Istanbul (2009); the Berlin Film Festival, Forum Expanded (2009); a focus screening at EXIS: Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul, Korea (2010); Empire of Dreams: phenomenology of the built environment at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2010); STITCHES: Suzhou Fast Forward, Workshop, Toronto (2011).
Legal Memory, their first feature-length work, has been shown in a number of film festivals since its release including: The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Festival, the Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani (Turin, Italy), the Toronto Festival of Festivals and broadcast on TVOntario. In 1996, their work THE BLOOD RECORDS: written and annotated, received a world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and toured with a bi-lingual catalogue published by The Oakville Galleries.
Updated: April 27, 2014

Artist Code: 802

Videography

The Afternoon Knows What the Morning Never Suspected

2017, 21:00 minutes, colour, English

Falling Up

2007, 06:05 minutes, colour, English (text only)

Free Speech - installation

2006, 01:35 minutes, colour, Silent; English & French Text

Make Love Not War - installation

2003, 02:10 minutes, colour, Silent; English & French Text

Practicing Death

2003, 03:13 minutes, colour, silent

We're Getting Younger All The Time

2001, 20:05 minutes, colour, silent

Power - installation

1998, 01:56 minutes, colour, Silent; English & French Text

Stand Up - installation

1998, 01:32 minutes, colour, silent

Blood - installation

1998, 01:31 minutes, colour, Silent

The Blood Records written and annotated

1997, 49:20 minutes, B&W & colour, English & French

Legal Memory

1992, 79:49 minutes, colour, B&W, English

White Dawn

1988, 09:05 minutes, colour, English / French

Private Eyes

1987, 18:29 minutes, colour, English

See Evil

1985, 28:08 minutes, colour, English

Working The Double Shift

1984, 19:25 minutes, colour, English