Biography

Jay Dart is a Canadian drawist and designer whose practice extends from drawings to bookworks, mixed media pieces, installations, and animated videos.

His work has been shown in galleries across Canada and in art fairs around the world, including Paris (Drawing Now), New York (Art on Paper), Montreal (Papier), Amsterdam (100 Euro Show), Portland (100 Dollar Show) and Art Toronto (solo booth). This is Dart’s fourth solo exhibition at Galerie Youn. His first major public gallery solo exhibition, Greetings From Yawnder! opened at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in October 2016 before travelling to the Art Gallery of Sudbury in February 2017. The accompanying catalogue for this exhibition, Field Guide to Yawnder, is available at the Art Gallery of Ontario. He is the recipient of multiple grants and honours including from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and National Magazine Awards. His work has been featured on CBC radio and television, including a profile on The Exhibitionists. Dart is a graduate of the University of Guelph’s Fine Art programme, and he currently lives and draws with his family in the small hamlet of Ashburn, Ontario.

Statement

“Atop the hills of excess fill, amid the Vooka storm of yawns and dust,
wonderers ponder airborne fathoms and scrawls amongst our past us.”
– Jiggs 

For over a decade, Jay Dart has been developing a series of drawings featuring his alter ego, Jiggs, and a cast of wanderers in the whimsical mindscape known as Yawnder through which a narrative continues to evolve about the mystical nature of inspiration, the quest for innovative creation, and the dissemination of ideas. Within this conceptually layered world, Dart explores themes of identity, innocence lost/recovered, isolation, ecology, and interconnection in modern society. 

This series has resulted in almost 300 pieces, including mixed-media works, installations, animated videos and bookworks that add another dimension to the works on paper. To mark the occasion of the 10th anniversary of his first bookwork and the inception of this body of work, Dart will be exhibiting new drawings alongside rarely-exhibited past works from the Yawnder series in a show titled Ten Hundred Years of Yawns & Dust. It is fitting that this touring anniversary exhibition begins at Galerie Youn since the gallery is also celebrating a 10-year anniversary, and it was here, in 2013, that Dart exhibited work from this series for the first time in a professional setting.

Many of Dart’s newest drawings harken back to the earliest settings of the Yawnder saga. However, a decade later, things have changed a little as the mystical dust storm of Vooka has blown in from the previously unexplored part of his mindscape called the Unknowns. The name for this atmospheric event references the concept of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) which has been used to describe the state of anxious, unpredictability that defines the “new normal” of our times. The wanderers in the Yawnderverse must now contend with what’s “in the air” figuratively but also literally as they ponder their airborne surroundings.

As in Dart’s past exhibitions, he continues to find new approaches to presenting his drawings so that the scenes extend beyond the picture planes. Among his newest works is a series of drawings on panels where the compositions carry on from the front of the panels along the sides and continue onto the walls. The installation of these 10 drawings presents a continuous landscape of the notable sites within the semi-biographical world that he has explored … so far. 

Curriculum Vitæ

Education

2002 Bachelor of Arts – Honours, Major in Fine Art, University of Guelph

Solo Exhibitions

2017 Meanwhile Back Over Yawnder, Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa, ON
2017 Greetings from Yawnder!, Art Gallery of Sudbury, ON
2016 Greetings from Yawnder!, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON
2015 Now Entering Beyawnder (Bienvenue a Audelabaille), Galerie Youn, Montreal, QC
2014 Wanderer of Yawnder (revisited), Line Gallery, North Bay, ON
2013 Further Over Yawnder (Plus Loigne Labaille), Galerie Youn, Montreal, QC
2010 The Wanderers, Atelier 688, Toronto, ON
2009 Like Something I Never Seen Before, eBar, Guelph, ON
2008 Yesteryears, Fountain Gallery, Toronto, ON

Art Fairs

2017 Art Toronto, Galerie Youn solo booth, Toronto, ON
2016 Papier 16, Galerie Youn booth, Montreal, QC
2016 Art On Paper, Galerie Youn booth, New York, NY
2016 Come Up To My Room, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, ON
2015 Art On Paper, Galerie Youn booth, Miami, FL
2015 Art Toronto, Galerie Youn booth, Toronto, ON
2015 Papier 15, Galerie Youn booth, Montreal, QC
2014 Affordable Art Fair, Galerie Youn booth, New York, NY
2014 Love Art Fair, Galerie Youn booth, Toronto, ON
2011 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Toronto, ON
2009 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Toronto, ON
2009 TOAE: Best of 2008, First Canadian Place Gallery, Toronto, ON
2008 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Toronto, ON

Group Exhibitions

2017 Art Toronto (Solo Project), with Galerie Youn, Toronto, ON
2017 That Night In Toronto, Group Show at Mayberry Fine Art, Toronto, ON
2017 Summer Rhubarb V, Group Show at Slate Gallery, Regina, SK
2017 Durham Reach, Group Show at Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON
2014 Annual Members’ Exhibition, Station Gallery, Whitby, ON
2014 Festival of Smalls, Art Interiors Gallery, Toronto, ON
2014 Fresh stART Fundraiser, Los Angeles, CA
2013 Queen West Art Crawl Outdoor Exhibition, Toronto, ON
2012 Fictionary, Group Show, Station Gallery, Whitby, ON
2012 The 100 Dollar Show, Group Show, Portland, USA
2011 Annual Members’ Exhibition, Station Gallery, Whitby, ON
2011 Paths with Dana Roman, Canmore Artists & Artisans Gallery, AB
2011 Queen West Art Crawl Outdoor Exhibition, Toronto, ON
2011 The 100 Euro Show, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2010 Queen West Art Crawl Outdoor Exhibition, Toronto, ON
2009 Solid Gold, Group Show, Mercer Union, Toronto, ON
2008 The 12 Days of Climate Change X-mas, Distill Gallery, Toronto, ON

Awards and Distinctions

2016 Gold Award, spot illustration, National Magazine Awards
2016 Emerging Artist grant, Ontario Arts Council
2016 Exhibition Assistance Grant, Ontario Arts Council
2014 Exhibition Assistance Grant, Ontario Arts Council
2014 Best In Show, Annual Members’ Exhibition, Station Gallery
2012 Exhibition Assistance Grant, Ontario Arts Council
2011 Best In Show, Annual Members’ Exhibition, Station Gallery
2010 First Place: Audience Choice Award, Queen West Art Crawl
2008 Honourable Mention: Drawing, Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition