Angela Grossmann

Born in London, England in 1955, Vancouver, BC, based visual artist Angela Grossmann is best known for her deliberate and provocative displays of sexualization, displacement and social margins commenting on the women’s experience of a post-modern world. Employing the voyeuristic gaze, Grossmann allows the vulnerable, and largely emotional, tone to take precedence aiming to affect the viewers expectations of symbolized female erotica.

Though the majority of Grossmann’s works embody the gender norms associated with the experience of a woman, the two genders are approached by way of exploring the inequalities which to Grossmann manifests as resistance to blatant objectification. Further, Grossmann’s work explores the ideas related to ownership and commodification of the female body and likens a reversal of traditional norms as a basis for female empowerment.

Grossmann’s works consist of reused materials, such as photographs, postcards and doll clothing, mixed with oil paint to create layered collage-esque provocations of normalized gender identity and the socially accepted norms of the sexualized body. Upon graduation from Emily Carr University in 1985, Grossmann’s works have been featured in many solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada, the U.S., Europe and Japan. Featured alongside the Young Romantics and the Vancouver School, Grossmann’s works are often exhibited with the likes of Douglas Coupland, Atilla Richard Lukacs, Graham Gilmore and Derek Root, all of whom worked collectively with Grossmann to create a sculptural installation entitled "Vancouver School" in 2006. Most recently Grossmann’s works have been exhibited at galleries in and around Vancouver, B.C.