Artist Bio
Michael Belmore was born in 1971 north of Thunder Bay and graduated with an A.O.C.A. in Sculpture/Installation from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, Ontario in 1994. Belmore is of Ojibwe heritage and currently lives in the Haliburton Highlands in Ontario.Since graduating from the Ontario College of Art Belmore has worked in a variety of media including plastics, metal, wood and photography. The materials used are an important key to understanding his work and bring into account how we view nature as commodity. For several years his work has evolved around our use of technology and how it has affected our relationship to the environment.Previous exhibitions have included First Nations Art at the Woodland Cultural Centre, Brantford, Ontario (1992), Naked State at the Power Plant Comtemporary Art Gallery at Harbourfront, Toronto, Ontario (1994), Staking Land Claims at the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Alberta (1997), lichen at the Toronto Sculpture Garden (1998), Ravens Wait at the Indian Art Centre in Hull, Quebec (1999) and Vantage Point at the Sacred Circle Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington (2002). As well Belmore has shown with several artist-run-centres and collectives across Canada and created site-specific public art installations for Thunder Bay Art Gallery, University of Western Ontario in London as well as for the City of Peterborough.A member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Belmore’s work is represented in the permanent collections of the Indian Art Centre in Hull, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinberg, Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Agnes Etherington Art Gallery in Kingston, and in numerous private collections.
