CINDY STELMACKOWICH

CINDY STELMACKOWICH

Cindy Stelmackowich is an Ottawa-based artist, curator, and professor. Born
in Saskatchewan, Stelmackowich received a M.A. at Carleton University after
completing a B.A. and B.F.A. at the University of Saskatchewan. Her artwork
and academic research has focused on themes related to medicine and
anatomical science and is linked to her Ph.D. dissertation (Binghamton
University, New York). In her artwork, Stelmackowich has questioned the
methods and meanings of science; how science gets performed on the body;
and how the languages of medical science operate. Her artwork often brings
together diverse medical-related materials and found objects, most recently
through digitally combining photographic images. Stelmackowich has
exhibited across Canada and the United States in solo and group
exhibitions, and has received numerous grants from the Canada Council, the
Ontario Arts Council, and the City of Ottawa. In addition, Stelmackowich
has received prestigious awards, residencies and international fellowships,
including the 2011-12 Helfand Fellowship in the History of Medicine at the
New York Academy of Medicine.

DEARLY DEPARTED
Cindy Stelmackowich was invited to become the first collections-based
artist-in-residence at the Bytown Museum in Ottawa in 2011. During this
residency she investigated the museum’s holding of Canadian Victorian
mourning objects made of human hair, Victorian “spirit” photographs,
mourning attire, and portraits of Queen Victoria. Because Stelmackowich’s
art practice has centered on the human body as a site of fragility,
mortality, beauty and memory, this residency provided opportunities for her
research and the creation of new artwork. In EYE WREATH (2011),
hand-painted glass eyes (used in Victorian taxidermy) appear to be
sprouting like seedlings from a human hair wreath. As curator of the
exhibition Judith Parker has noted, “by re-contextualizing elements
associated with the body, Stelmackowich transforms them into a surrealist
nature morte.” In her digital prints THE DEARLY DEPARTED, faded
anatomical illustrations and plaster medical models are poetically layered
with images from a small Victorian mourning booklet comprised of verse and
circles of hair braids that marked the deaths of deceased family members.
Stelmackowich alludes to the visceral sense of loss experienced during
bereavement by conjoining the sentimental and the scientific. In HAIR CROWN
SUITE, each Victorian oval frame contains braids of brown or blond hair and
is covered with mourning lace to take the conventional place of family
portraits. The adorned gilded teester “crown” with its long flowing
hair, interior glow, and ghosting shadows, also evokes an ethereal sense of
bodily presence and absence. Continuing to use hair as a sculptural element
and inspired by Victorian women’s elaborate hairstyles, POSTHUMOUS_
_groups portraits of anonymous young women from the 1870s with an
arrangement of ornamental hair buns on a table covered by black mourning
lace, commemorating women’s individual rituals of adornment.

MOURNING I and II
Research of 19^th-century anatomical atlases, resulted in the rare
discovery of anatomical figures that appear doubled, as if embodying
ghosts. These natural stains haunt Stelmackowich’s large-format digital
prints of dissected bodies and function as melancholic transfers. Rather
than work with conventional photographic matting and framing, Stelmackowich
has surrounded these vivid images with hand-pleated, black silk fabric and
thick ornately carved black wooden frames, much like the interior lining of
coffins.

REQUIEMS
In Stelmackowich’s unique sculptural Requiems, numerous butterfly wings
are collaged onto the flat surfaces of marble obelisks and pyramids. In
selecting to use delicate natural materials that allude to the tragically
short lives of butterflies and the fragility of human existence, she refers
to both the Victorian fascination with classifying nature, and the
spectacles of both death and artistic creation. The small Requiems are
enshrined in glass Victorian bell jars, whereas the larger 6-foot wooden
obelisk that is layered with hundreds of iridescent wings, subtitled In
Paradisum, functions as its own memorial to beauty and the dead. In
reference to the Egyptian obelisks and their role as “sun pillars,” one
side of the obelisk has bright yellow and green wings to symbolize
daylight; the other side has black and blue wings to represent the night
sky.

CHOLERA SHAPES AND SPACES SERIES
After the cholera epidemic of 1854, the London Board of Health published a
series of reports based on microscopical examinations. The source of
disease was widely debated, so both the air and the water were key areas of
epidemic investigation. In focusing on the hand-drawn images from these
mid-19th century reports of London’s “filthy” air and water,
Stelmackowich has incorporated layers of 19th-century black mourning lace
that she has collected and digitally scanned. The symbols of mourning
function as a reminder not only of the consequences of deadly decisions
based on scientific “evidence,” but the incorporation of
ornately-patterned lace against pretty and refined diagrams of diseased
conditions reinforces how Victorian science was strongly attached to
decoration and aesthetics. This series is a continuation of the
artist's exploration into how science and medicine are practices that
are obsessed with visuality and making the invisible, visible.

THE DISASTER SERIES
In the 12 works in The Disaster Series (2007-2008) Stelmackowich digitally
layers two examples of 19^th-century images; pages from 19^th-century
anatomical atlases that were intended to instruct medical students how to
visualize the interior of the body prior to dissection, and disaster scenes
from 19^th-century illustrated newspapers and graphic publications such as
the London Illustrated News. Through various digital imaging techniques,
Stelmackowich inserts 19th-century disaster scenes into the deep anatomical
regions of the body; shipwrecks swirl inside the cranium, great fires burn
in the chest regions, distressing volcanoes erupt in the lungs. In
suggesting that tragedies, losses, and sufferings might lodge themselves
deep inside our anatomies, Stelmackowich investigates the central role of
disaster in the development of Western science’s empirical
investigations, notions of “progress” and the construction of identity.
In her re-readings of anatomy, the imagining of disasters and the discourse
of calamity are given visual and contemplative space.

BLINDED BY SCIENCE
In the photography-based series Blinded by Science, figures from
19th-century anatomical atlases—displaying highly detailed renderings of
the body’s organs, muscles, and minute tissues—are magnified and
contained. Colorful glass vessels, which also refer to the world of beauty,
magnification, transparency, and fragility, both morph and contain these
dissected cadavers. In each of these works, Stelmackowich shows that the
Classical medical figure is represented as neither dead nor alive, hovering
between life and death. In pointing to this contradiction related to the
“undead,” she reminds us that medical illustration is strongly rooted
in the worlds of wonder, fantasy and speculation.


CURRICULUM VITAE

EDUCATION
2010 Ph.D., History and Theory of Art, Binghamton University, Binghamton,
New York, USA
1995 Master of Arts, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario
1991 Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
1991 Bachelor of Arts, Honours in Art History, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan

FELLOWSHIPS
2011/2012 Helfand Fellowship, New York Academy of Medicine, New York, N.Y.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011 Cindy Stelmackowich: Dearly Departed, Bytown Museum, Ottawa, Ontario
2010 In Mourning Of, Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2009 The Disaster Series, Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova
Scotia
2009 Anatomized, Bilton Centre for Contemporary Art, Red Deer, Alberta
2009 Anatomized, Godfrey Dean Art Gallery, Yorkton, Saskatoon
2008 Embalmination, Kristi Engle Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA
2007 Catastrophic Visions, ARC, Ottawa, Ontario
2007 ANATOMIA, Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2004 - 05 Between Art and Medical Science, The Estevan Art Gallery and Museum,
Estevan, Saskatoon
2004 Medical Imprints, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2002 Dissected, Artspace, Peterborough, Ontario
2000 Liminal States, Binghamton University Art Gallery, State University of New York,
Binghamton, New York, USA
1999 Amazons and Fabulations, The Shanghai, Ottawa, Ontario

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2012 Papier 12 Contemporary Art Fair, Montreal
2012 PMG Editions Project, Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa
2011 Prairie Snapshot: Prairie Scene, National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Ontario
2011 Place and Circumstance, City Hall Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2011 Geo-Portrait of Sound, Daimon, Gatineau, Quebec
2010 Toronto International Art Fair, Courtesy of Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
2010 Science in Art, Canadian Museum of Science and Technology, Ottawa, Ontario
2010 Triumph of the Therapeutic, Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2010 Obsolete Concepts: The Books + Art Show, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa,
Ontario
2009 IPS (In Plain Sight) Gallery, Montreal, Quebec
2009 Toronto International Art Fair, Courtesy of Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Toronto,
Ontario
2009 Microcosm, Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2009 The Collection’s Cabinet, City Hall Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2009 Verticality, O’Connor Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
2009 Anatomy: In Ruins and Remade, Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2008 Toronto International Art Fair, Courtesy of Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Toronto,
Ontario
2008 Verticality, Gallery 101, Ottawa, Ontario
2008 Obsolete Concepts: The Books + Art Show, Toronto, Ontario
2007 Science in Art, Galerie de l’UQAM and Department of Heritage, Virtual Museum
Project
2007 Splash: OAG Annual Art Auction, Ottawa, Ontario
2007 The New: Part One, Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2006 Interactivity, Enriched Bread Artists, Ottawa, Ontario
2007 Glass, Enriched Bread Artists, Ottawa, Ontario
2005 Interface: OAG Annual Art Auction, Ottawa, Ontario
2002 Out From Under, Galerie d'art de l'Université de Moncton, Moncton,
New Brunswick
2002 Templates, 14th Biennial conference of the National Association of Women and
the Law, Ottawa City Hall Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2002 Spirit of Drawing: OAG Annual Art Auction, Ottawa, Ontario

AWARDS AND GRANTS
2011 Bytown Museum, Artist Residency
2011 The Ontario Arts Council, Mid-Career Grant
2010 The Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant
2009 The Ottawa Council for the Arts, Mid-Career Artist’s Award
2009 The Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant (also in 1997, 1999, 2001,
2002, 2007 & 2008)
2008 The Ontario Arts Council, Mid-Career Grant
2008 The City of Ottawa, Individual Visual Arts “A” Grant (also in 2004, 2007)
2007 Centre de production Daimon Photography and Digital Imaging Research and
Creation Residency
2005 - 06 Dissertation Year Fellowship, Binghamton University
2003 The Canadian Council for the Arts, Visual Arts "C" Grant (also in 2001)
2002 The Canadian Council for the Arts, Travel Grant
2002 The City of Ottawa, Individual Visual Arts "B" Grant (also in 2001)
2002 The Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant
1999 The City of Ottawa, Project Grant
1997 SAW Video Jumpstart Award

COLLECTIONS
The Canadian Council Art Bank; The City of Ottawa; The Ottawa Art Gallery;
York University, School of Arts & Letters, Culture and Expression; Private
Collections

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2011 Research Consultant, Medical Sensations, Canadian Museum of Science and Technology, Ottawa
2009 - 10 Curator, SKINS, (Dates and Location TBA)
2003 Curator, Mindscapes, West Block, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Ontario
2001 - 03 Board of Directors, Gallery 101, Ottawa, Ontario (also in 1993 – 04)
2002 Curator, Fluid: Emerging Artists from Canada, Gallery 101, Ottawa, Ontario
1999 Conference Organizer, Generations and Feminisms, SAW Gallery, Ottawa,
Ontario
1998 Curatorial Intern, Artists Space, New York, New York, USA
1998 Visual Arts Consultant, The Canadian Consulate, New York, New York, USA

TEACHING APPOINTMENTS
2003 -Present Lecturer, Art History, School for Studies in Art and Culture, Carleton University,
Ottawa, Ontario
2003 - 05 Part-time Professor, Visual Arts Department, University of Ottawa, Ottawa,
Ontario
1998 - 01 Graduate Teaching Assistant and Sessional Lecturer, State University of New
York, Binghamton, New York, USA
1994 – 98 Sessional Lecturer, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario
1991 – 93 Graduate Teaching Assistant, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario
1990 – 91 Sessional Lecturer, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

SELECTED ARTIST TALKS AND LECTURES
2011 Bytown Museum, Ottawa
2011 Carleton University, Ottawa
2011 Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa
2010 McGill University's Osler Library for the History of Medicine, Montreal
2010 University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario
2010 Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa
2008 Kristi Engle Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA
2007 CAA, College Art Association Annual Conference, New York, New York
2007 School for Studies in Art and Culture, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario
2006 International Victorian Studies Association, Purdue University, Indianapolis,
Indiana
2006 UAAC, University Art Association of Canada Conference, NSCAD, Halifax
2005 Culture and Expression, School of Arts & Letters, York University, Toronto,
Ontario
2005 UAAC, University Art Association of Canada Conference, University of Victoria,
Victoria, British Columbia
2004 Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2004 Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec
2003 University of Ottawa Visual Arts Dept., Ottawa, Ontario
2003 University of Ottawa Women’s Studies Dept., Ottawa, Ontario
2002 Artspace, Peterborough, Ontario
2002 A Dinner Party for Jane Doe, SAW Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2001 University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia
2000 Uncommon Senses: An International Conference on the Senses in Art and
Culture, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec


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