Bio

Penny McCann's body of media artwork spans thirty years and encompasses both narrative and experimental films. Her work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival (Ann Arbor, Michigan), the Hamburg Short Film Festival (Hamburg, Germany), the Ottawa Art Gallery (Ottawa, Ontario), and the Cinémathèque Québécoise (Montreal, Québec).

Works

Crashing Skies

  • 2015
  • Penny McCann

An ordinary rural landscape is transformed into an enigmatic dreamscape. A farmhouse stands in a copper field of scratched emulsion as solarized flares illuminate the sky. Split toned horses amble dreamlike across the frame into inky underexposed blackness.

Crashing Skies

Expo Film (this film is my memory)

  • 2022
  • Penny McCann

Using anonymous home movie footage of Expo ’67 in Montreal, the artist sets out to recreate a memory that perhaps never existed.

Still from Expo Film (this film is my memory)

Gibraltar Point (transformed)

  • 2019
  • Penny McCann

The ninth work in an ongoing series of poetic landscape films. "Gibraltar Point (transformed)" was created during a residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point on Toronto Island. Shot on black and white 16mm film, hand-processed, then transferred digitally with an ambient sound design by Michelle Irving.

Gibraltar Point (transformed)

Marshlands (Marécage)

  • 2016
  • Penny McCann

A psychic's prediction of impending disaster underlies this experimental meditation set on the marshes of Sackville, New Brunswick.

Marshlands (Marécage)

Fires of Joanna, The

  • 2015
  • Penny McCann

Set against the bleak landscape of Depression-era Eastern Ontario, this film tells the story of Joanna McVeigh and her struggle to endure a harsh and unforgiving life

Fires of Joanna, The

Awards

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