Diaz Contemporary is pleased to present a curated collection of works from the 1970s by Garry Neill Kennedy. A number of the exhibited works were recently featured in Artissima’s 2013 Back to the Future presentation in Turin, Italy.
Throughout the past five decades, Kennedy’s ambitious painting and drawing practice has explored the conceptual, material and linguistic tendencies of art making and art viewing. Kennedy’s Untitled, a graphic drawing on stretched canvas from 1975, utilizes the materiality of the raw canvas as its subject matter. Similarly, the Imperfections series, also from 1975, comments on the flaws and inconsistencies of the cardboard panels upon which Kennedy draws.
Garry Neill Kennedy is one of Canada’s most prominent and senior contemporary artists. In addition to an extensive international exhibition history, Kennedy has also held the position of president of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for twenty-three years (1967-1990), establishing NSCAD as a forerunner in art education. Recently, MIT Press invited Kennedy to author a book, The Last Art College, NSCAD (1968-1978) that chronicles the first ten years of his presidency. In 2003, Kennedy was a recipient of the Order of Canada and in 2004, was presented with the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.
Kennedy has had solo exhibitions at Printed Matter (New York City), Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (Toronto), Pickled Art Centre (Beijing), Portikus (Frankfurt am Main) and the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. His work is featured in many notable collections including: the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa).
  
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