Azure, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 147.5 x 117 cm
Version, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 147.5 x 117 cm
Red Blue, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 173 x 122 cm
Green Black, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 173 x 122 cm
Fall, 2006, gouache on paper, 41 x 51 cm
Cool, 2006, oil on canvas, 76 x 61 cm
Return, 2006, oil on canvas, 91.5 x 112 cm
Artist’s Dream, 1998, oil on canvas, 66 x 86.5 cm
Arrangement, 1998, oil on canvas, 76 x 96.5 cm
With her characteristically reductive painting vocabulary, Wiitasalo paints elusive figures that emerge from and disappear into rich and murky depths. Her “subjects” read almost as atmosphere – detectable yet indecipherable – with a palpability that is echoed in the vortiginous and billowing spaces of the painted ground.
“ [In the large paintings,] I have a lot of fun playing with tentativeness. I can barely see it myself. In a small painting, the mark is very direct, as if I were nailing down the shifting colours … I’m dancing between these almost extremes: it’s this repertoire I can play with… ”
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Selected Group Exhibitions
Stripped right down to the peek-a-boo
by R.M. Vaughan (review)
The Globe and Mail, 29 May 2010
The Donovan Collection
by Daniel Donovan (book)
Toronto: University of St. Michael’s College, 2010
Shirley Wiitasalo
by Diana Nemiroff (book)
in The Gershon Iskowitz Prize: 1986 to 2006; Toronto: The Gershon Iskowitz Foundation, 2009
The Calibration of Chance
by Claire Christie (exhibition brochure)
Toronto: Susan Hobbs Gallery, 2008
Shirley Wiitasalo
by Peter Blendell (review)
CanadianArt.ca, Summer 2007
Elusive Clarity: An Interview with Shirley Wiitasalo
by Robert Enright (article)
Border Crossings, August 2005
Fire Sign
by Betty Ann Jordan (preview)
Toronto Life, October 2004
Small is subtle
by Sarah Milroy (review)
The Globe and Mail, 17 September 2004
Aluminum at Susan Hobbs Gallery
by Greg Humeniuk (review)
Circa, Spring 2003
Obscure Imaginings: Visual Culture and the Anatomy of Caves
by Mark A. Cheetham and Elizabeth D. Harvey (article)
Journal of Visual Culture, 2002
Shirley Wiitasalo at the Power Plant
by Gary Michael Dault (review)
The Globe and Mail, 30 December 2000
Let down your avant-garde
by Daphne Gordon (review)
The Toronto Star, 17 December 2000
Shirley Wiitasalo
by Barry Schwabsky (exhibition catalogue)
Toronto: The Power Plant, 2000
Shirley Wiitasalo at Susan Hobbs
by Gillian MacKay (review)
The Globe and Mail, 3 April 1999
Moira Dryer/Shirley Wiitasalo
by Ken Johnson (review)
The New York Times, 22 January 1999
Moira Dryer/Shirley Wiitasalo (review)
The New Yorker, 11 January 1999
Image as Phantasm: Opticality and Experience in Shirley Wiitasalo’s Recent Work
by Gregory Salzman (article)
Parachute, 1998
Report from Toronto: Opening Doors
by Roni Feinstein (article)
Art in America, November 1994
René Daniëls/Shirley Wiitasalo
by Ingo Arend (review)
Kunstforum, März-Juni 1994
Mal wieder Maler
by Martin Bochynek (review)
Marabo, März 1994
Shirley Wiitasalo; Paul Andriesse
by Edna van Duyn (review)
Flash Art, January/February 1994
Befragen der Räume
by Eva Buhrfeind (review)
Berner Rundschau, 15 July 1993
Über Fotographie und über Malerei
by Niklaus Oberholzer (review)
Luzerner Zeitung, 5 July 1993
René Daniëls/Shirley Wiitasalo
by Jeanne Randolph (review)
Parachute, Summer 1993
Radiant Days
by Gillian MacKay (article)
Canadian Art, Spring 1993
Show pairs Toronto, Netherlands painters
by Nancy Tousley (review)
The Calgary Herald, 19 March 1993
Vibrant pair’s painterly works prove
power of subtle images
by Deidre Hanna (review)
Now Magazine, 11-17 February 1993
The uses of illusion
by Kate Taylor (review)
The Globe and Mail, 16 January 1993
René Daniëls / Shirley Wiitasalo
by Ulrich Loock (exhibition catalogue)
Toronto: Art Gallery of York University, 1993
Canadian Biennial of Contemporary Art
by Diana Nemiroff (exhibition catalogue)
Ottawa: National Gallery of Art, 1989
Subversive Action
by Gary Michael Dault (article)
Canadian Art, March 1988
Shirley Wiitasalo
by Philip Monk (exhibition catalogue)
Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1987
Free at Last, Toronto Painting and Sculpture
by Donald B. Kuspit (article)
C Magazine, Winter 1985
Distance, Desire: Shirley Wiitasalo’s Landscape Images
by Peggy Gale (article)
C Magazine, Fall 1985
The Allegorical Image in Recent Canadian Painting
by Bruce Grenville (exhibition catalogue)
Kingston: Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 1985
Late Capitalism
by Tim Guest (exhibition catalogue)
Toronto: Art Gallery at Harbourfront, 1985
Subjects in Pictures
by Philip Monk (exhibition catalogue)
Toronto: YYZ, 1984
Fiction: Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, April 2-May 30
by Philip Monk (review)
Parachute, September/November 1982
Fiction
by Elke Town (exhibition catalogue)
Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1982
Shirley Wiitasalo: Carmen Lamanna Gallery
by Bruce Ferguson (review)
Parachute, Summer 1980
Kanadische Künstler
by Jean-Christophe Ammann (exhibition catalogue)
Basel, Switzerland: Kunsthalle Basel, 1978
Some Canadian Women Artists
by Mayo Graham (exhibition catalogue)
Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1975