Location
Art Gallery of Sudbury | Galerie d'art de Sudbury
251 rue John Street
Sudbury, ON
P3E 1P9
Artists
Heather Topp
Heather Topp has been making art for more than 50 years. She has presented more than 15 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 65 group exhibitions since locating to Sudbury in 1980-81. Each series of art produced by Heather Topp seeks to create a dialogue with the viewer about the challenges in the social and political landscape of the community we live in. “My art is a conversation,” says Heather Topp, “always changing and contradicting, evolving tensions.”
This exhibition includes important series of large-scale papier-mâché figures, hand-built ceramic sculptures in stoneware, paintings, and drawings. Heather Topp’s processes of art-making often call upon non-traditional media that in turn expand the traditional definitions of the fine arts.“Heather Topp’s local activism is fundamental to her artistic expression,” says Demetra Christakos, Director|Curator. “She is an important feminist artist and educator, a significant inspiration for other artists both as a senior artist and as a community builder. “We sometimes hear the term ‘Change-maker’ invoked in other sectors. For the visual arts in Greater Sudbury, Heather Topp’s artistic practice is what that means.”
In 2014, Heather Topp was the recipient of the Award of Excellence at the Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts in Greater Sudbury. She has been awarded six grants from the Ontario Arts Council and she was the first woman and the first visual artist to be recognized with Northern Lights Festival Boreal’s Jackie Washington Award for outstanding artistic contribution. Raised in Montreal, Quebec, and Burnt Church, New Brunswick, Heather Topp studied Visual Arts and Children’s Literature at Concordia University (1978-1982), Visual Arts at Cambrian College (1982-1986), with a year in Sociology and English Literature at Laurentian University (1987). “Some of the key works we encounter in this retrospective exhibition were originally presented by the artist in conjunction with artist-run centre La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario,” continued Christakos. “Just as Heather Topp has done, GNO consistently makes Sudbury a better place for other artists – and for all of us – to live and work. We feel privileged to present this exhibition.”