Art Metropole

Chrysanne Stathacos is a multi-media artist and educator whose work has been exhibited extensively in museums, galleries, sculpture gardens, train stations, and public spaces internationally for twenty-five years. She was born in Buffalo, New York in 1951 and studied fine arts at the Cleveland Institute of Art (1969-1970); at York University, Toronto (1970-1973); and at the Open Studio, Toronto (1975-1976). Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s Stathacos was active in the Toronto artist-run community, curating projects for A-Space, and co-directing The Gap, a performance art space she co-founded in 1980 with Martin Heath, Colin Lochhead, Elke Town, and David Buchan (1950-1994). In the late 1970s Stathacos became associated with the art collective General Idea, eventually becoming close friends with the group’s founders, AA Bronson (b. 1946), Felix Partz (1945-1994), and Jorge Zontal (1944-1994). Stathacos moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1981 and after two years there relocated to Manhattan, where she co-curated The Abortion Project with Kathe Burkhart (b. 1958) at Artists’ Space and the Simon Watson Gallery, New York in 1991 and the following year collaborated with Hunter Reynolds, aka Patina du Prey (b. 1959), on a performance piece entitled The Banquet at the Thread Waxing Space. Other major works by Stathacos include 1-900, Mirror Mirror (1994), a performance piece; The Wish Machine (1995), her first interactive public art work; The Aura Project (1999-2006); Refuge, a Wish Garden (2002); and The Roses (2006). Noteworthy collaborations in which Stathacos participated include Green Machine (1994), with composer Ben Neill (b. 1957); and One Night, One Garden One Wish (2006), with sound artist Andrew Zealley (b. 1956). Stathacos has received awards from Art Matters (1995), the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation (1998), the Japan Foundation (2001), and the Puffin Foundation (2005). She is represented in numerous public collections, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; the Art Gallery of Hamilton; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; and the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester.