Under a Painting's Skin

I am interested in painting as an expanded practice that is both informed and informing many means of contemporary inquiry. I use performance, photography and dance as a way of physically negotiating paradigms of painterly abstraction. My performances, or performed paintings, are a mode of generative research; to analyze, create and pose questions about the body’s relationship to painting and sculpture.  I physically perform and choreograph common painterly tropes such as edge, flatness, depth and rhythm with the use of the body under dynamically sewn fabric cloaks or “sheaths.” These sheaths mimic being underneath the skin of a painting.  Beneath the intricately sewn garments, which include fabrics that both stretch and remain taught, props such as poles and harnesses are used to augment a sense of performed movement, the presence of the body and two-dimensional pictorial shape.

This inquiry yields many forms of creative product and evidence of process.  I perform individually and invite guest dancers to perform choreographed works in both public and institutional settings.  I also take photographs of the performances, which become large-scale photographic artworks.  These photos also inform the creation of  digital-collages and paper collages and large-scale paintings. 

Bio

Tia Halliday was born in Calgary Alberta. She received a BFA in distinction from the Alberta College of Art and Design, attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and obtained an MFA from Concordia University.  Halliday has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions and performance projects across Canada, the U.S.A and Europe. Her work has been highlighted in The Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, and Canadian Art.  Tia is the daughter of the late Canadian abstract painter Richard Halliday RCA.  Tia Halliday is currently a tenure-track Instructor of visual art and theory at the University of Calgary's Department of Art.