Liz Ingram Biography

Liz Ingram was born in Argentina and grew up in New Delhi, Mumbai and Toronto. For over forty years she taught at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and is currently Distinguished University Professor Emerita in printmaking and drawing/intermedia. Her artworks have been exhibited in numerous solo and duo exhibitions, and over 300 group exhibitions in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. She has participated in juried International Biennials and Triennials for many years and has received awards for her prints at juried exhibitions in Canada, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), Poland, Korea, Brazil, Estonia, India and Finland. In 1998 Ingram was elected into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 2008 she received the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Research Excellence at the University of Alberta and was inducted into the City of Edmonton Hall of Fame, in 2009 she was elected into the Royal Society of Canada for her contributions to Canadian culture, and in 2011 she was awarded the University Cup (the University’s highest academic honor).

Liz Ingram is currently working in various media including etching, photo intaglio, digital media, and installation, often in collaboration with artist/designer/poet Bernd Hildebrandt. Recent exhibitions include: Liz Ingram: Print Encounters 1984 - 2014, Prince Takamado Gallery, Embassy of Canada, Tokyo, Japan, 2015; Liz Ingram: Transition and Transformation, Schwabenakademie, Irsee, Germany, 2013-14; The New World, MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary, 2013; Perceptions of Promise,&#160Glenbow Museum, Calgary, and the Chelsea Art Museum in New York USA, 2011; Beyond Printmaking: Images in Objects (installation), the Jesuits Gallery of Contemporary Art, Poznan, Poland, 2009. Public commissions include: Touching Water: Anticipation and Memory, Edmonton International Airport, 2004; Confluence Through the Looking Glass, Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, Calgary, Canada, 2011; and Water Ways, Sensing Connections, Fort McMurray International Airport, 2014.

The human body and the elemental in nature are recurring sources for Ingram’s art practice, which investigates transitional states between material presence and the ephemeral, and issues relating to the fragility of life and the environment. In an attempt to reawaken an understanding of our fundamental connections with nature, she uses images of glistening water and the human body, focusing on a specific lake site in the Alberta boreal forest. 

Bernd Hildebrandt Biography

Bernd Hildebrandt was born in Germany and raised in Germany and Canada. He received his MVA from the University of Alberta in 1980. Communication through images and type are central to Bernd Hildebrandt’s work. With an interest in photography and sculpture, his master’s thesis dealt with the structure, material, and perception of words and letters in an environment.

With a background in sculpture, and two and three-dimensional design, he works at combining images and words with the three-dimensional. As an exhibit designer he has completed numerous exhibits on art, as well as mummification, Chinese robes and paintings, dentistry, diamonds, meteorites and biographical material. His interest in an exhibit’s interpretation of the object, and utilization of space, has also influenced his personal artwork, which includes solo and group installations of natural materials, poetic texts and images. An interest in writing poetry has sparked a number of collaborations with Liz Ingram in which his poems are integrated into the fabric of her large-scale images and installations. These are meant to compliment and provide a sensual context to the elemental nature of her images. Hildebrandt’s understanding of scale and structure has also given her images a dimensional resonance that confronts and engages the viewer. Working together has been very productive and has resulted in such installations as seen in gallery exhibitions at the Schwabenakademie, Irsee, Germany, (2013-14), the MODEM Centre for Modernand Contemporary Art, Debrecen, Hungary (2013), the Chelsea Art Museum, NY (2011), the Jesuits Gallery of Contemporary Art, Poznan, Poland (2009) and the Art Gallery of Alberta (2008).