| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Jane Kidd is a textile artist now based out of Salt Spring Island, BC where she maintains an active studio practice. Kidd’s primary medium is hand-woven tapestry. Her beautiful, technically demanding and conceptually rich tapestries provoke profound questions about handicraft, disciplinary knowledge, and the importance of bringing historical practices into the contemporary art arena for critical discussion and debate.
Through her practice and her teaching, Kidd has shown that tapestry is capable of beautifying and enriching the environment of the user. She also stresses that as a material artifact, tapestries are intrinsically linked to the communication of vital cultural information. Kidd has been at the forefront of advocacy for this important form of disciplinary practice for a number of years.
Kidd taught at the Alberta College of Art and Design for 34 years. Highly recognized as one of the most dynamic textile artists in Canada, Kidd has received numerous prestigious awards. She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art in 2001, and won the Alberta Craft Council Award of Excellence in 2008. In 2016, she received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, the Saidye Bronfman Award, for her contribution to fine craft. She has exhibited in numerous exhibitions across Canada, the United States, Japan, Poland, Hungary, and Australia. Her work is held in private and public collections including the Canada Council Art Bank, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and The Canadian Museum of History.
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