The IRIS Group,
a collective of women artists, began in 1996 as a forum to share ideas, offer mutual support, and develop projects that further the overall intentions of the group. Based in Durham Region, meetings and activities radiate from this location. IRIS has exhibited work and mounted outreach projects in galleries and on campuses in Ontario, Alberta, New York State and Mexico.
IRIS is a member of CARFAC Ontario.
Projects have included:
a collective of women artists, began in 1996 as a forum to share ideas, offer mutual support, and develop projects that further the overall intentions of the group. Based in Durham Region, meetings and activities radiate from this location. IRIS has exhibited work and mounted outreach projects in galleries and on campuses in Ontario, Alberta, New York State and Mexico.
IRIS is a member of CARFAC Ontario.
Projects have included:
- IRIS invites BAWAA to Durham for studio visits (August 1996)
- Development of a mentoring program proposing to sponsor a female graduate in developing an exhibition
- Participation in IWD exhibitions at Niagara Falls Art Gallery (1996–97)
- Group exhibition at Durham Board of Education Centre (1998) including collaborative piece titled copperquilt
- Memory and Nature: The IRIS Group at the Millennium group exhibitions at RMG (Oshawa) and AGN (Cobourg)
- Workshops sharing skills among members
- FREE ART – bookmarks made from chopped paintings, labelled with Free Art stickers and distributed in area Libraries. FREE Art cash register tapes at A&P store (Wallace and Rodgers)
- Small works at Liisa’s Velvet Elvis café. (2001)
- Baghdad Museum exhibition organized by the Iris Group for Iris and Friends. Its purpose was to create an expressive reconstruction of the artifacts that were looted or destroyed in Baghdad during the recent conflict and to raise money to contribute to humanitarian aid. Proceeds from sales revenue were shared between the artist and the Canadian Red Cross. Venues were VAC Clarington, Latcham Gallery Stouffville, and Propeller Centre in Toronto.
- Women in … IWD events 2005-2011 (Bowmanville, Oshawa, Edmonton, Saranac Lake NY, Minden, Peterborough, Whitby)
- Summer Projects – outdoor projections of works by group members
- FLUID exhibition at Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, 2007.
- FLUID 2 at Agnes Jamieson Gallery, Minden 2009
- IRIS joins Red Head Gallery as a collective within a collective 2007.
- Deviant Detours at Kunsthaus, Mexico 2009
- EDGE exhibition at Red Head March 2009
- Brooklyn Art Library Art House Co-op “The Fiction Project” 2010.
- AGYU Artist's Book of the Moment entry http://www.theagyuisoutthere.org/abotm/books/?s=iris&searchsubmit=Find
- Artsweek events Peterborough September 2010
- The IRIS Group exhibition, Central Branch, Whitby Public Library March 1 – 31 2011.
- IRIS@BOLA August 2011
