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Evan Penny

Biography

Evan Penny (born 1953, in South Africa), currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 1978, Penny graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design and received a post-graduate degree in sculpture. Evan Penny makes sculptures of human forms out of silicone, pigment, hair and aluminium. His pieces range from the almost precisely lifelike, to the blurred or stretched. Penny says one of his interests “is to situate the sculptures perceptually between the way we might see each other in real time and space and the way we imagine our equivalent in a photographic representation.” Though his creations are lifelike, Penny believes that “the real can’t be represented or symbolized,” leaving everything to be a representation. Evan Penny’s early works include sculptures, as well as digital photographs. Penny sculptures go beyond the concept of photorealism in three-dimensional space. In his early figural sculptures, Penny stays true to an undistorted, classical human form, although the scale is typically smaller than life-size. One of the most notable pieces from this group is Ali (1984); a full-figure nude of a young woman. The sculpture is hyper-articulated, and Penny renders every inch of the woman’s body in great detail. The result is an uncanny and surreal effect. Penny’s early figurative sculptures were brought together in Absolutely Unreal, a major survey of the artist’s work that traveled to the Museum London in London, Ontario, the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta (2003–2006).

News / Ranking / Titbits / Awards

1997 Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award from the Canada Council.

Talent

Evan Penny

Biography

News / Ranking / Titbits / Awards

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