Cathy Daley was born in Toronto in 1955.
She studied at the Ontario College of Art from 1973 to 1975 and at Art's Sake Inc. in Toronto from 1979 to 1980.
Artist's Statement
Drawing on persistent cultural images inspired by ballerina tutus, the garb of fairy-tale princesses and Barbie doll couture, my work investigates childhood memories of what it means to be female in Western culture and explores cultural representation of the feminine and the body. The drawings mine contemporary vocabularies of glamour, fashion, popular culture, cartoons, street signage, Hollywood cinema, fairy tales, and mythology, to examine the iconography of the feminine as it exists in the cultural imaginary, personal memory, and fantasy.
I work primarily in the medium of drawing and almost exclusively with black pastel on translucent vellum. This medium with its potential for overwriting offers me the possibility of a spontaneous and direct working process. I use black pastel for its depth and wide range of tonality. The drawings often have an almost sculptural presence as a sense of volume is produced. I also use black pastel because it is an elemental drawing material. Some recent works incorporate collage elements culled from fashion magazines, combining mechanical reproductions with hand drawn gestures. Some of the new work has incorporated colour to explore visceral references to the body.
In addition to drawing, I have also created some sculptural works - “Little Black Dress”, a 17 foot high extravagantly slender cloth gown and “Soft Stiletto” a collapsed oversized vinyl shoe with stiletto heel. Both of these pieces evolved from drawings as did “The Little Black Dress” a video animation produced from hundreds of drawings of black dresses morphing into a variety of forms which references early 50’s style cartoons
Submitted by:
Marie Hélène Sirois \\\ @ Le zèbre bleu
I work primarily in the medium of drawing and almost exclusively with black pastel on translucent vellum. This medium with its potential for overwriting offers me the possibility of a spontaneous and direct working process. I use black pastel for its depth and wide range of tonality. The drawings often have an almost sculptural presence as a sense of volume is produced. I also use black pastel because it is an elemental drawing material. Some recent works incorporate collage elements culled from fashion magazines, combining mechanical reproductions with hand drawn gestures. Some of the new work has incorporated colour to explore visceral references to the body.
In addition to drawing, I have also created some sculptural works - “Little Black Dress”, a 17 foot high extravagantly slender cloth gown and “Soft Stiletto” a collapsed oversized vinyl shoe with stiletto heel. Both of these pieces evolved from drawings as did “The Little Black Dress” a video animation produced from hundreds of drawings of black dresses morphing into a variety of forms which references early 50’s style cartoons
Submitted by:
Marie Hélène Sirois \\\ @ Le zèbre bleu
