BIOGRAPHY Dana Edmonds has a multidisciplinary practice balanced between painting and graphic + web design. Born in Montreal, where she lives and works, Dana received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, Halifax (1990). She has also studied Graphic Design at Dawson College and Art Education at McGill University. Dana has attended BANFF Emerging BAIR Residency, Alberta (2022) and Jano Lapin Residency, Montreal (2022). Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the US, including "I am NSCAD" Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax (2015), "Show Your World" Gallery MC, New York (2016), "Painting 2017: Juried Exhibition," John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto (2017), 33rd Chelsea International Fine Art Competition Exhibition" Agora Gallery, New York (2018), Xposed: Humans vs. Planet Earth", Knox Contemporary Gallery of Art, Alberta (2019), "Future_Tense," Intervals Collective, Maison de la culture Côte-des-Neiges, Montreal (2020), “Being Scene" Workman's Art, Toronto (2022), Art for Climate Justice, David Suzuki Foundation (2021) "Steal this Poster" Atelier Circulaire, Centre3, and Martha Street Studio (2023), “Zoom Art”, Laval (2023), “The Heart and Soul of St. Henri” at Musée Pointe-À-Callière, Montreal (2024) and her upcoming Solo Exhibition at Gallery 101 in Ottawa, scheduled for June 27 to July 27, 2024. She is a recipient of grants awarded from the Canada Council for the Arts for 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023, as well as, the Montreal Art Council 2021 and the Conseil des Arts et des lettres du Québec 2024.
ARTIST STATEMENT I am a multimedia artist working across oil painting, silk screening, design, digital media, video, sound, and textile upcycling.
My practice confronts the global crisis of overconsumption, focusing on fast fashion and its entanglement with the climate emergency, mental health crisis, and waste colonialism. By salvaging discarded materials and transforming them into new forms, I reveal the hidden human and ecological costs embedded in what we buy, wear, and throw away.
I blend research with making, guided by thinkers like Orsola De Castro, Aja Barber, Monica L. Miller, and the OR Foundation’s work in Ghana. Every piece I create, whether oil painted, printed, recorded, or stitched, carries respect, care, accountability, and honours the dignity of what the world tries to forget.
My work asks people to slow down, look closer at what seems disposable, and remember that everything has a cost and a story. In this way, I continue in the long lineage of my ancestors by turning survival into art, stitching the past into the present, refusing to let the thread break.
Photography and Artistic Direction:
Camille Dubuc @camille_dubuc
Audience: Joëlle Villeneuve @joellevillenveuve
Alexia Toman @al.toman , Tomy Jo @tomyjo
Em-P L'Abbée @pas.si.bum.que.ca
Camille Dubuc @camille_dubuc
Audience: Joëlle Villeneuve @joellevillenveuve
Alexia Toman @al.toman , Tomy Jo @tomyjo
Em-P L'Abbée @pas.si.bum.que.ca
Acknowledgement of the support of The Canada Council for the Arts
Acknowledgement of the support of The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
Acknowledgement of the support of Conseil des Arts de Montréal.