Glenn Lewis

Glenn Lewis was born in Chemainus, British Columbia in 1935. He studied at the Vancouver School of Art, obtaining an Honours degree in 1958, and then a teaching degree from the University of British Columbia in 1959. He continued his studies in art under Bernard Leach in Cornwall, England, studying ceramics from 1961 to 1963. He then taught ceramics at the University of British Columbia from 1964 to 1967. Although an intensely important part of his artistic repertoire, his work with traditional pottery was replaced with an interest in the progressive avant-garde, including conceptual and performance art, in the 1960s. Always questioning the dialectic between conventional objects and art, social obligation and natural instinct, function and beauty, his past experience with sculpture played an important role in his new projects. 

Much of his work between the 1960s and the 1980s included some aspect of sculpture or positioning as a questioning of the dichotomy between the static and the transient. He was fascinated with seeking commonality and human links revealed by conventional items and popular myth. He experimented with photography, film, and even horticulture, becoming increasingly interested in nature and topiary. He was involved in a number of artists’ collectives and artist-run centres, including the New Era Social Club in 1968 and the Western Front in 1973. Many of his works were collaborative and included members of these collectives, often questioning the perception of reality by a public manipulated by the media. New media in all types became the catalyst for much of his work through the 1980s and 1990s, an investigation into its power to influence and broadcast, and yet limit perception at the same time. This attention to new media eventually led to his appointment as Head of Media Arts at the Canada Council from 1987 to 1990. He was awarded with five Canada Council grants throughout his life. He was also awarded the prestigious “Emily” award from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 2000, and the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2017.

Glenn Lewis currently lives and works in Vancouver.