Bio
Joyan Saunders is a Canadian artist and educator who has taught at the University of California in San Diego, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, and York University in Toronto. Her videotapes have shown extensively throughout North America and Europe. Exhibition venues include New York's New Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, the American Film Institute and LACE in Los Angeles, A Space and The Power Plant in Toronto, and the Berlin International Film Festival. Her work is in the collections of the National Film Board and the National Gallery of Canada. Saunders takes an unusual approach to the video medium, creating tapes which are akin to paintings with the element of real time. Her background in photography has played a role in the development of her unique style. Her tapes do not incorporate complex imagery in the technical sense, but focus on the use of colour, formal composition and humour to explore what she regards as a cliche ridden world. The vignettes confront the viewer with images that are slowly revealed to be somewhat more (or less) than they appear.