Officer of the Order of Canada
Awarded on: 1982-12-20
Invested on: 1983-04-20
From her beginnings as a commercial artist in Toronto, Joyce Wieland has become a leading figure in Canadian art. She was in New York during the heyday of the Pop Artists, but in her work satire gave way to a positive feeling for Canada. Believing in the democratization of art, she turned to quilt-making, elevating this handicraft into a vehicle for her own "mythology" of Canada. In her film "The Far Shore" she carried the myth-making process further, incorporating landscape, ecology and the striving of such people as Tom Thomson.