Contributor

Jay Wilson is a Toronto artist (sculptor), designer, and educator. He is a full-time professor of design in the Art and Art History program, a joint program between the University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College. He has an Honours degree in Wildlife Biology and Statistics from the University of Guelph as well as his diploma from The Ontario College of Art and Design and his MFA from York University. Wilson has shown both locally and internationally, most notably in the Havanna Biennale in 2003 and as part of a North American survey show in Bologna, Italy entitled Officina America curated by Renato Barill in 2002. He has received creation, research, and exhibition assistance grants from the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. He served on the Board of Mercer Union and as president from 2000-2002, and was the inaugural recipient of the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Artist Prize. He is represented by KWT Contemporary in Toronto. His design and art practices are a mix of conceptual considerations and play. His artistic direction is structured, but often full of segues, spontaneity, and contradiction. Lately, his practice includes building labour-intensive structures made of toothpicks that involve a community of collaborators that help complete the work.