VERNON PUBLIC ART GALLERY VERNON, BRITISH COLUMBIA CANADA www.vernonpublicartgallery.com
TAMMY SALZL BEAUTIFUL PARASITES
BEAUTIFUL PARASITES TAMMY SALZL
Vernon Public Art Gallery January 11 - March 5, 2024
Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Vernon Public Art Gallery, 3228 - 31st Avenue, Vernon, British Columbia, V1T 2H3, Canada January 11 - March 5, 2024 Production: Vernon Public Art Gallery Editor: Lubos Culen Layout and graphic design: Vernon Public Art Gallery Front cover: The Melancholia of Lady Macbeth, oil on canvas, 213cm x 152cm (84” x 60”), 2019 Printing: Get Colour Copies, Vernon, British Columbia, Canada ISBN 978-1-927407-81-3 Copyright © 2024 Vernon Public Art Gallery All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the Vernon Public Art Gallery. Requests for permission to use these images should be addressed in writing to the Vernon Public Art Gallery, 3228 31st Avenue, Vernon BC, V1T 2H3, Canada. Telephone: 250.545.3173, website: www. vernonpublicartgallery.com. The Vernon Public Art Gallery is a registered not-for-profit society. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee/RDNO, the Province of BC’s Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch, British Columbia Arts Council, the Government of Canada, corporate donors, sponsors, general donations and memberships. Charitable Organization # 108113358RR.
This exhibition is sponsored in part by:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Executive Director’s Foreword · Dauna Kennedy
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Beautiful Parasites - Introduction · Lubos Culen
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Embracing Shadows · Agnieszka Matejko
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Artist Statement · Tammy Salzl
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Images of Artwork in the Exhibition
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Curriculum Vitae · Tammy Salzl
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD
On behalf of the Board of Directors and the Vernon Public Art Gallery staff, I am pleased to welcome the exhibition by Edmonton based artist and educator (University of Alberta) Tamy Salzl titled Beautiful Parasites as our opening exhibition for 2024. Salzl is an internationally exhibiting artist with a focus on multimedia works that include painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and film. This particular exhibition focuses on storytelling from an ecological perspective with narratives from different cultures and historical events. I’d like to thank our guest writer for this publication, Agnieszka Matejko. A freelance writer Matejko regularly writes for Galleries West while also maintaining her own artistic practice focusing on youth and children as well as collaborative public art projects. Word on the Street is an example of one of her installations where poetry by inner-city residents was sandblasted onto sidewalks in the McCauley neighbourhood of Edmonton. Thank you to Lubos Culen, Curator for the VPAG and the rest of the gallery team for working together to enrich the lives of our gallery visitors through critical programming that expands visual literacy within our community. Thanks to our funders such as the Province of BC, BC Arts Council and the Regional District of the North Okanagan, we are able to exhibit work such as this for the people of the North Okanagan. Our donors, members and sponsors also contribute to the success of our programming and we are grateful for their support. See you at the VPAG, Dauna Kennedy Executive Director Vernon Public Art Gallery
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TAMMY SALZL: BEAUTIFUL PARASITES - INTRODUCTION
Tammy Salzl’s exhibition titled Beautiful Parasites is a multi-media installation consisting of paintings, sculptural objects, video, and sound composed by Canadian composer Greg Mulyk. Salzl’s artwork is quite overtly surrealistic and ambiguous in meaning. The artwork employs imagery which is obscure, and it provides visual cues for the viewer to decipher possible parallel narratives. The subject matter is multilayered and often incorporates Salzl’s autobiographical references and parallel interpretations of appropriated narratives and imagery. Generally, there are several dominant themes in Salzl’s artwork. The artwork is a commentary on the human condition often associated with societal norms and status. Some of the works examine consequences of human stewardship within the frame of ecological damage caused by development of heavy industry. The portrayal of human protagonists and animals is almost grotesque with dark undertones inevitably resulting in the feeling of fear and anxiety. Salzl’s work is influenced by surrealist art resulting in dreamlike scenes populated by real and imagined creatures. An Hour of Silence for Leonora is Salzl’s homage to British-born surrealist painter Leonora Carrington. The small sculpture is an expression of hybridity which includes an arachnoid body with human head and hands. The commentary on human condition, and cycles of mortality and rebirth is encapsulated in another small sculpture titled Bloom. Similarly, the concern about vanishing coral reefs is retold through the legend of mythical monster Medusa whose blood entered the sea and it was transformed into corals. Believers is presented as a doll house which serves as a metaphor for childhood and domesticity. Inside, the parents are watching scenes from a nature documentary produced in 1958. In 1982 the CBC’s 5th Estate exposed the nature documentary to be fake footage. In constructing the dollhouse and focusing on the manufactured nature documentary, Salzl work serves as a metaphor and critique of the era of ‘alternative facts’. In addition to themes of human condition, environment, and political critique, Salzl brings to attention some religious practices. In Purity Ball, Salzl’s painting is linked to the ‘purity ball’ event practiced in conservative Christian communities in the USA. It is attended by fathers and daughters and focused on promoting virginity until marriage. In Sunday Best, Salzl presents the image of conjoined twins with one body and two heads. This artwork, while grotesque, brings to attention the notion of what is beautiful and normal contrasted with the sentiment of
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what it is to be in an outdated freak show. Indirectly, this artwork also plays on the symbolism of dual power in some mythological narratives. In the painting Puss Gets an Avatar, Salzl uses humor to critique people’s presence on the Internet and specifically the use of avatars. She points out that in the current ‘metaverse’ people create avatars, identities which are not real, but constructed and presented as independent assumed entities. The painting Thumbelina is loosely based on the fairy tale titled Thumbelina written by Hans Christian Andersen and published in 1835. The story about the small, magical white girl is a tale about self-determination. In Salzl’s interpretation, the image of Thumbelina is a self-assured black woman confronting the viewer with a powerful gaze. The inclusion of images of ants references the power of nature and humanity’s reliance on various pollinators. Salzl’s critique of humans’ stewardship of nature is again reflected in the sculpture titled Conjuring Time. The sculpture has a complex set of identifiers which reference the existential nature of human activity upon the environment. Salzl introduces an image of ‘nature witch’, who is casting a spell to gain more time for humanity to solve environmental issues. The Melancholia of Lady Macbeth is partially based on the Shakespearean character of Lady Macbeth and Ophelia. Salzl’s created a hybrid character that represents the melding of the two characters into a personage which can challenge the ingrained misogyny and constructed societal codes placed on women. Ginger the Happy Centaur is a painting which addresses the issue of gender and ethnic inequality. It is partially based on Greek mythology where the Centaurs (half-horse and half-human creatures) were predominantly portrayed as males. Salzl’s inspiration was also influenced by the video M.I.A, Born Free1 which graphically portrayed a genocide on red-haired people. The painting titled Gaia conveys more of Salzl’s concerns about the environment. Gaia personified the Earth goddess in Greek mythology and currently the Earth scientists use the name in the context of Earth’s existence as a living organism. The painting presents Gaia as exhausted and emaciated while still trying to correct the imbalance in the environment caused by humans.2 Salzl’s exhibition Beautiful Parasites is packed with different potential narratives and subject matter. Even though the exhibition has strong environmental undertones and messaging, Salzl’s subject matter extends to questions of female identity(ies), human condition, ecology, politics, and religion. Examined through Feminist lenses, Salzl’s protagonists are powerful messengers on the side of progress and ready to recognize what actions are to be taken. Despite the positive messaging regarding the subject matter, Salzl creates
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environments which have a propensity to invoke uncertainty and anxiety. In her often-surrealistic rendering of the figures and animals, the viewer is invited to decipher possible narratives which are not linear; on the contrary, the possible narratives have a verticality of meaning instead of proposing a ‘grand’ narrative. Salzl’s modus operandi includes a strong analysis of the sources – current and historical narratives – and consequent synthesis further creating new relationships between the protagonists and the environments they occupy. Lubos Culen Curator, Vernon Public Art Gallery Endnotes: 1 https://vimeo.com/11219730; accessed December 6, 2023 2 Author’s note: the references to Tammy Salzl’s artwork in this writing were partially based on her short descriptions of artworks as outlined in the file titled Vernon_description.PDF created on September 17, 2023, and emailed to the curator
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EMBRACING SHADOWS By: Agnieszka Matejko “If you put frightening things into a picture, then they can’t harm you. In fact, you end up becoming quite fond of them.”—Paula Rego1 Lost in a dark forest, a frightened boy transforms into a stag. A spider crawls on human hands. A reborn Medusa rises from a vulva-shaped clamshell. An emaciated Gaia brings forth new life. These eerie scenes fill Tammy Salzl’s Beautiful Parasites, an exhibition of paintings and mixed-media sculptures bathed in a haunting soundscape by Canadian composer Greg Mulyk. Many of Salzl’s characters are household names. Countless Disney films and tomes of Greek myth have embedded them deep into children’s lore. Yet Salzl’s take on European folklore startles. There is nothing childlike about a female-headed spider whose open legs reveal a row of breasts, like the ancient sculptures of Artemis of Ephesus. Savage sexuality and danger lurks in the shadows. There are no soothing fairy-tale endings. Salzl’s unflinching take on childhood stories draws on their origins: the bone-chilling folktales of the European oral traditions passed on around firepits or spinning wheels. These stories started out full of the macabre, but they have been increasingly bowdlerized over the ages. For instance, in the first edition of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s folklore collections, from 1812, Snow White’s mother wants to devour her lungs and liver, Rapunzel has a “merry time” in the tower and is impregnated by the prince, and Hansel and Gretel’s mother abandons them in the forest. By the seventh and final edition, in 1857, the tales have been sanitized, made child-friendly, and filled with Christian references. And modern-day versions, such as Disney’s lovable tearjerkers, are unrecognizable. But the atrocities in the original tales have a purpose. According to Maria Tatar, a Harvard University professor of folklore and mythology whose scholarship Salzl admires, fairy tales can be therapeutic. As Tatar explains in The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, gruesome stories can transform trauma and pain. “By entering the world of fantasy and imagination, children and adults secure for themselves a safe space where fears can be confronted, mastered, and banished,” she writes.2 Tatar’s words are key to understanding the horror embedded in Salzl’s artworks—some of them based on harrowing childhood experiences. For instance, when Salzl was in elementary school, her mother joined the Pentecostal Church and forced her daughter to attend services and memorize scriptures. As Salzl watched other parishioners speak in tongues and collapse on the floor filled with God’s spirit, she felt only fear of hell and damnation.
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Salzl’s painting Sunday Best draws on her memories of those times. It depicts a two-headed prepubescent girl stopping on her way to church. Her feet are shyly turned in, but she looks directly at the viewer. Dressed in a strapless, cleavage-revealing dress, she holds a bouquet of blood-red flowers. One of her two heads, wide-eyed and postcard-beautiful, is serene. The other explodes with fear and rage. “This painting refers to that time,” says Salzl. “The me sitting as a well-behaved little girl and the me on the inside not fitting in.” This self-portrait exposes our smiling and composed Facebook persona as a mask for inner fears. Salzl dares to face the murky waters of her psyche, and she challenges viewers to do the same. Civilized society, she believes, “is a thin veil for the base creatures we are.” Wartime atrocities prove how quickly ordered existence can collapse. According to Salzl, fairy-tale characters fearlessly explore humanity’s darkest sides. She cites the stragglyhaired, hook-nosed hag who devours rosy-cheeked, innocent children as a prime example. As her extensive research has uncovered, this misogynistic archetype has a fascinating history. Widespread witch trials coincided with the coldest phases of the Little Ice Age, which took place from about 1300 to 1850. Before this time, women healers and herbalists were valued and coexisted with Christianity. However, harsh weather patterns, followed by famines and plagues, led to widespread accusations of witchcraft. Around 60,000 people, 80% of them older women, were murdered. “I can’t help but compare that time to our current reality and how the climate crisis is coinciding with the rise of hatred and misinformation towards trans people and other marginalized groups,” says Salzl. “It feels like a new kind of witch hunt to me.” Her mixed media and ceramic sculpture, Conjuring Time, subverts the evil witch stereotype as it pays tribute to her trans daughter and all those who are othered, feared, and blamed for society’s ills. It depicts a blueskinned young woman dressed only in flashy pink socks. She kneels on all fours in the centre of a massive tree stump and looks down at the destruction that logging has wreaked. She is a nature witch, but instead of inflicting cruelty and devastation like classic fairy-tale witches, she casts a spell to save humanity from environmental collapse. Her long hair cascades like a life-giving waterfall as a new tree of life rises from her body. Salz’s concern for all the generations of children facing climate change permeates her art. There are many clues embedded in her artworks. For instance, a deformed frog can be found in the bottom corner of the Purity Ball oil on canvas painting. Other works, inspired by ecofeminist writers such as Donna Haraway, focus entirely on environmental issues.
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Salzl’s Tidal Gifts sculpture, immersed in Mulyk’s soundscape set to the slow beat of waves crashing against a shore, depicts a woman arising from a clamshell. She simultaneously evokes Botticelli’s sublime Birth of Venus and the grisly myth of Medusa, whose decapitated head bled and formed red corals and other creatures. Salzl’s Medusa is white, like the dying coral reefs, but she is magically reborn from the same life forms that her blood once created. Such flashes of hope, whimsy, and magic make the gut-wrenching topics in this show bearable. Like the surrealist artists whose work she admires, Salzl creates art that allows viewers to enter dreamlike worlds and process harsh realities. In this, her work resonates with the all-male artists who founded the surrealist movement in response to the bloodshed, trauma and insanity of World War 1. They saw their art as alchemical magic that activates the subconscious, liberates the mind from rationalism, and ultimately revolutionizes human experience. Salzl’s more powerful influences, though, are the post-1930s neo-surrealist feminist women artists. Their work flourished long past World War II—a time when many art historians claim the surrealist movement had ended. Salzl sighs with dismay at the way art historians have ignored the efforts of her female predecessors— until now, that is. In the past decade, surrealist women have re-emerged, with shows in major centres such as Chicago’s 2023 Remedios Varo: Science Fictions exhibition, or Fantastic Women held in Frankfurt in 2020. And in 2022, the 59th Venice Biennale, which Salzl attended, celebrated the feminine surreal, with a majority of artworks created by women and non-binary artists in the Milk of Dreams exhibition. When Salzl entered the room dedicated to Paula Rego (1935–2022), one of over 200 surrealist artists from 58 countries represented, she was moved beyond words. Rego not only draws on fairy tales to illuminate dark psychological spaces but also bases her art on childhood traumas. For example, in the pastel drawing Snow White and Her Stepmother, Rego depicts a stiletto-heeled stepmother assisting her daughter in putting on white underwear. Is she testing for a torn hymen or loss of virginity? Rego offers no answers but the questions this work poses are alarming. Similarly disturbing scenes also fill Salzl’s art practice, but her aim is never gratuitous. Like her ancient storyteller predecessors, she knows that fearsome emotions expressed around a fire, between the pages of a book, or in the safe space of an exhibition, can lead to acceptance and transformation. Perhaps Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychiatry, expressed it best. “To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light,”3 he wrote in a 1959 essay on good and evil. Those words echo amidst the enchanted worlds depicted in Salzl’s show. Each of her artworks embraces darkness and points the way to the light.
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Endnotes Paula Rego, qtd. in Matos, Carolina: “Paula Rego: Internationally acclaimed Portuguese artist died age 87 – London, UK.” Portuguese American Journal, 8 June 2022. Obituary. <https://portuguese-american-journal.com/paula-rego-internationallyacclaimed-portuguese-artist-died-age-87-london-uk/> 2 Maria Tatar. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales (New York/London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), xiv. 3 Carl Jung. “Good and Evil in Analytical Psychology.” Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 10: Civilization in Transition (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1970), 872. 1
Agnieszka Matejko is a freelance writer and community-based artist whose practice focuses on youth and children as well as engaging non-arts groups in public art projects. Her installations include Word on the Street, where poetry by inner-city residents was sandblasted onto sidewalks in Edmonton’s McCauley neighbourhood. She regularly writes for Galleries West, among others.
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ARTIST STATEMENT My work explores connections between the human psyche, shifting identities and ecological collapse through an otherworldly cast of characters in painting, ceramic sculpture and multi media installation. As societies evolve to cope in a time of both global crisis and unprecedented technological advancements, we stand at a precipice of hopeful potential and possible disaster. How does this uncertainty shape us? My work draws from feminist ecological fabulations, surrealism, Greek mythologies and traditional tales from my white-settler heritage. I am interested in how our private narratives are deeply rooted in ancient folklore and storytelling, interweaving fabled archetypes into painted and sculptural hybrids in order to examine existential realities. I see the characters I create as psychological portraits that embody our shifting sense of self in exacting times. Their stories are like ours; at times humorous, at times endearingly tragic, and always edged with possibility. Through them I examine my unease towards my role and place in a complicated world, while proposing space for hope and optimism. Tammy Salzl
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BEAUTIFUL PARASITES ARTWORK IN THE EXHIBITION
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The Melancholia of Lady Macbeth, oil on canvas, 213cm x 152cm (84” x 60”), 2019
Sunday Best, oil on canvas, 152 cm x 107 cm (50” x 42”), 2019
Persephone and the Last Bee, oil on canvas, 122cm x 91cm (48” x 36”), 2021
Ginger the Happy Centaur, oil on canvas, 91cm x 76cm (36” x 30”), 2022
Thumbelina, oil on canvas, 91cm x 76cm (36” x 30”), 2020
The Hunt, oil on canvas, 102cm x 82cm (40” x 32”), 2023
Gaia Tries Again, oil on canvas, 102cm x 91cm (40” x 36”), 2023
Puss Gets an Avatar, oil on canvas, 51cm x 61cm (20” x 24”), 2023
Purity Ball, oil on canvas, 61cm x 76cm (24” x 30”), 2023
Adrift, oil on canvas, 61cm x 76cm (24” x 30”), 2022
Medusa’s Bestowal, glazed ceramic, polymer clay, found oceanic materials. 30cm x 23cm x 25cm (12” x 9” x 1o”), 2023
Conjuring Time, ceramic, glaze, wood, 40cm x 28cm x 36cm (16” x 11” x 14”), 2023
Bloom, minerals, ceramic, glaze, wire, wood, wax, 43cm x 38cm x 43cm (17” x 15” x 17”), 2023
Tidal Gifts, polymer clay, ceramic, found objects, kinetics, video, sound, 46cm x 91cm x 91cm (18” x 36” x 36”), 2023
An Hour of Silence for Leonora, ceramic, acrylic paint, dog fur, 23cm x 41cm x 53cm (9” x 16” x 21”), 2023
A Gorgon’s Legacy, ceramic, glaze, wood, shell, 84cm x 46cm x 46cm (33” x 18” x 18”), 2023
Believers, HD video, soundtrack, box power amp. and speakers, laser motion sensor, wood from dollhouse kit, archival paper, watercolour, charcoal, found nest, balsa wood, fabric, wire, 74cm x 45cm x 61cm (29”H x 17.5”W x 24”L), 2019
Beautiful Parasites, installation View, Art Gallery of St. Albert, 2023
Beautiful Parasites, installation View, Art Gallery of St. Albert, 2023
Beautiful Parasites, installation View, Art Gallery of St. Albert, 2023
TAMMY SALZL
CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION 2014 2000
Concordia University, Montréal, QC. Master of Fine Arts, Painting and Drawing University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. Bachelor of Fine Arts.
SELECT SOLO AND TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2024 2023 2021 2019 2019 2017
2015 2014 2013
2010 2009
Beautiful Parasites, Vernon Public Art Gallery, BC. Beautiful Parasites, Art Gallery of St. Albert, AB. Emerald Queendom (relaunch), Harcourt House Artist Run Centre, Edmonton, Alberta. Tales From the In Between, Gallery @501, Sherwood Park, Alberta. Solo exhibition. Emerald Queendom, Harcourt House Artist Run Centre, Edmonton, Alberta. Broken Walls, White Water Gallery, North Bay, ON. Unfamiliar Selves, Two person exhibition with Jude Griebel. Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery, AB. Beauty and Folly, Ottawa School of Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario. Into the Woods, Two Rivers Gallery, Prince George, BC. VOLTA NY, Invitational Solo Project Art Fair, New York NY, represented by dc3 Art Projects Unfamiliar Selves, Two person exhibition with Jude Griebel. Art Gallery of Grande Prairie, AB. 2016 Storyland, dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton, AB. Un/Natural, Gallery 101, Ottawa, Ontario. Unfamiliar Selves, Two person exhibition with Jude Griebel, Touchstones Gallery, Nelson, BC. Tammy Salzl, Solo section, dc3 Art Projects. Art Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto, ON. simplest of gestures, dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton, AB. The Cleansing, CIRCA/POPOP Galerie, Montreal, QC. simplest of gestures, Warren G. Flowers Gallery, Dawson College, Montreal, QC. Falling Through the Mirror, Two Person Exhibition. Latitude 53 Gallery, Edmonton, AB. tell-tales, Union Gallery, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON. tell-tales, Sur la Montagne (SlaM), Berlin, Germany. Into the Woods, AKA Gallery, Saskatoon, SK. Falling Through the Mirror, Two Person Exhibition. FOFA Gallery, Main Space, Montreal, QC. Prospective Portraits. The New Gallery, +15 Window Project. Calgary, AB. Entitlement. ODD Gallery. Dawson City, YT. Inherent Truths. Les Territoires. Montréal, QC.
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Scrappy. International group exhibition, dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton, AB. 2021 Flux Constant Flux. La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, Montreal, QC. 2019 - July 2021 Women X Women, Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition, Program, TREX). 2019 The Dollhouse at the End of the World, La Central Galerie Powerhouse, Montreal, QC. 32
2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011
Salt Spring National Art Prize 2019/20; Finalists’ Exhibition, Salt Spring Island, BC. Dyscorpia, Enterprise Square Galleries, Edmonton AB. Le Vrai du Faux, Art Souterrain 2019, Montreal. International Art Festival, QC. Grow Op 2018, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, ON. Dollhouse at the End of the World, IFPP Collective, Ymuno Galerie, Montreal, QCc. Mythologies, Ann Street Gallery. Newburgh, New York, NY. Other Spaces. dc3 Art Projects Pop Up exhibition, LA. The Cleansing, Art Toronto International Art Fair, TO. (Featured Artist Project) Monstrous? dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton AB. Ok Ok Ok, an MFA thesis exhibition, Les Ateliers Jean Brillant, Montreal, QC. exxxvotos: Montreal + Mexico, White Spider Projects, Mexico, DF. Our Families: The Impact of Contemporary Family on Art. dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton, AB. Papier 13 Contemporary Art Fair of works on paper, Montreal, QC. Just Draw, dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton, AB. The Kingston Prize, Canada’s National Portrait Competition. Royal Ontario Museum, TO.
SELECT FILM FESTIVALS 2023 2022 2019
Love & Hope International Film Festival, Barcelona, Spain. SUBURBINALE Film Fest, Vienna, Austria. Skiptown Playhouse International Film Festival, Hollywood, LA. Tennessee International Independant Film Festival, Franklin, Tennessee. Reelheart International Film Festival, Toronto July 2020 New Filmmakers New York, NY. Oaxaca Filmfest X; Oaxaca, Mexico. Edmonton International Film Festival; Edmonton, AB.
AWARDS/ GRANTS 2023
2022 2020 2019 2018 2015 2013 2011
Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Recipient, Edmonton Arts Council, AB. Explore and Create - Research and Creation, Canada Council for the Arts Winner Best Experimental Short Film, The North Film Fest, New York, NY. Winner Best Silent Film, Skiptown Playhouse International Film Festival, Hollywood, LA. Eldon + Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Arts Prize: Shortlist recipient Winner Best Short Film, Reelheart International Film Festival, Toronto, ON. Creative Reserve Grant, Edmonton Arts Council 2019 Merit Award, Canada Shorts Film Festival Visual Arts Production Grant. Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Artist Merit Grant, Vermont Studio Center Residency, Johnson VT, USA. OALA / GROUND Magazine Award for best project, Grow Op 2018. Travel Grant. Conseil des arts et des lettres, QC. Production Grant.. Conseil des arts et des lettres, QC. Travel Grant. Conseil des arts et des lettres, QC. Honorable Mention. The Kingston Prize, Canada’s National Portrait Competition
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2010/11 Dale & Nick Tedeschi Studio Arts Fellowship, Montreal, QC. 2008 Visual Arts Project Grant. Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
ARTIST RESIDENCIES 2019 2018 2016 2013 2008
Artist Residency, Vermont Studio Center Residency, Johnson VT, USA. Artist in Residence, KH Messen International Artist Residency, Ålvik, Norway. Artist in Residence, I-Park International Artist in Residence, East Haddam, Connecticut, U.S.A. Exhibition and Residency, SlaM, Sur la Montagne, Berlin, Germany. Exhibition Creation Residency, 2009. Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, Dawson City, YT. Creative Residency, Visual Arts.The Banff Centre. Banff, AB.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Leah Collins, CBC Arts National News, A tiny fairy world was hidden in an Edmonton gallery during lockdown. Now, it’s yours to explore, Jan. 11, 2023 Emily Fitzpatrick, CBC Edmonton News, Fantastical Landscapes Inspired by Edmonton Ravine, Feb. 5, 2023. Travis Dosser, The Sherwood Park News, New exhibition offers multi-sensory experience. July 23, 2021 Agnieszka Matejko, Galleries West, Emerald Queendom: Salzl’s playful installation addresses adult truths. May 2021 Lana Michelin, Red Deer Advocate, Artists Jude Griebel and Tammy Salzl create psychological portraits, Jul. 5, 2019 INPA 8, Manifest International Painting Annual, pg. 129 Chief Curator Jason Franz Micheal Turner, Preview Gallery Guide Magazine, Tammy Salzl: Into the Woods Leah Sandals, Canadian Art, Canadian Artists Out in Force at New York’s Armory Week. Luc Rinaldi, Toronto Life, Floating French buildings, a self-playing piano and eight other must-see works at Art Toronto Robert Enright. Border Crossings Magazine, Borderviews Issue 133, Beautiful Parasites, pg. 21, 2015 Céline Escouteloup, NIGHTLIFE.CA, 5 artistes à ne pas manquer pendant l’incontournable foire Papier15 Megan Clark. “The Dark Side of Fairytales” CKUA Radio Network, ArtBeat Feature Story, April 5, 2014 Marcus Miller. “Janet Werner, Melanie Rocan, Tammy Salzl” Bordercrossings Magazine, Crossovers pg. 84-
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85, 2013 Margaret Bessai, “Tammy Salzl, Into the Woods”, Galleries West, Preview, Summer 2013 Bart Gazzola. “The Woods are Lovely... Salzl’s exhibit is dark and deep.” Planet S Weekly Magazine, Vol.11 #19 Amanda Edmond. “The Nature of a Child”, Where Magazine, Calgary, May/June 2010, pg. 22 Lance Blomgren. “Artists in Dawson: Tammy Salzl”, The Klondike Sun, Sept. 23, 2009
SELECT ARTIST TALKS 2023 2021 2019 2017 2017 2016 2015 2013
SSNAP Ceramics Finalist Panel, Moderated by Alexandra Montgomery, BC. Artist Talk. Gallery @501, Sherwood Park, Alberta. Artist Talk. Ottawa School of Art, Ottawa, ON. Panel Discussion: Gender & Identity; Two Rivers Gallery, Prince George, BC. Moderated by Maryna Romanets Artist Talk, Art Gallery of Grand Prairie, AB. Visiting Artist Talk. MacEwen University, Edmonton AB. Artist Talk. Touchstones Nelson Museum, Nelson BC. Panel Talk, SOLO Salon at Art Toronto, Moderated by Benjamin Bruneau Dreaming Painting: panel discussion with Janet Werner, Mélanie Rocan, Allyson Glenn. Mendel Art Gallery, SK.
COLLECTIONS
Alberta Foundation for the Arts Senvest Collection of New Canadian Art Private Collections
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VERNON PUBLIC ART GALLERY VERNON, BRITISH COLUMBIA CANADA www.vernonpublicartgallery.com
TAMMY SALZL BEAUTIFUL PARASITES
