Robert Youds

Robert Youds makes artworks that challenge the gap between aesthetic understanding and our perceptual experience of objects, images, and things. He achieves this by engaging us with the poetics of renewed communicative possibilities for the familiar and existing vernaculars within material forms. Initially trained as a painter he has expanded the conventional jurisdictional lines in his engagement with the medium over the past two decades to include the materiality of the designed environment, including aluminum, Plexiglas, LED and fluorescent lights and digital signs. Robert Youds completed his MFA from York University and he holds a BFA from the University of Victoria. His artworks have been exhibited in major public institutions such as: Site Santa Fe (USA), National Gallery of Canada, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Edmonton Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, and the Power Plant (Toronto). Youds’ works have been placed broadly in both public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Cadillac Fairview’s RBC building, Toronto, Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Hamilton Art Gallery, TD Bank Collection, BMO Bank Collection and Museum London among others. Recent solo shows include: late-day light, 330g Gallery; and Room Upgrade for Pacific Northwest Afternoon, at Deluge Contemporary. He has been a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Victoria since 1989.