Joel Herman

Joel Herman works primarily in drawing and painting, incorporating appropriative methods and modernist forms to explore the mutability of a material and historical structure. Concentrating on the language of reductive abstraction, his work investigates the relationship between material and form, and the complexities of our relationship to the past. Through the process of absorbing past artistic works and ideas, Herman's aim is to consider this material not as part of a resolved historical moment, but as something more fluid. Joel Herman attended the University of Victoria, where he received his BFA in 2004, and the University of Guelph, where he completed his MFA in 2008. His work has been included in exhibitions at Artspeak (Vancouver), Gallery 44 (Toronto), Open Space (Victoria), and The Ministry of Casual Living (Victoria), among other venues. He lives and works in Toronto.