Panya Clark Espinal

Weaving, 2021

Material and Process Development

The weaving journey continues

Weaving, 2020

Material and Process Development

In 2020 I began a dedicated endeavour to learn how to weave

Between Stories: The Agency of Story and Living Ways, 2018–2019

MFA Criticism and Curatorial Practice Thesis Project

A thesis project involving collaboration with an Icelandic Vernacular Culture Farmer

Material Redistribution, 2018

Printmaking Project and Residency

Salvaged bricks become a pigments for printmaking

SPIN, 2017

Integrated Public Art Installation

Five gestural rings appear and disappear for visitors at TTC’s Downsview Park Station

Building Colour, 2017

Public Art Installation

Public artwork for Mississauga’s MiWay Bus Route

Two equal Volumes (Series 2), 2016–2017

Drawing Sculptures

More experiments with the equal volumes of drawing material

Two Equal Volumes (Series 1), 2016

Drawing Sculptures

Experiments with the equal volumes of drawing material

Rawhide Works, 2016

Ancestral Activations and Inactivations

Raw deer hide is stretched and stitched over family heirlooms

Drawing Sculptures, 2015–2016

Works on and with Paper

Drawings with graphite while folding paper and unfolding the paper

Felted Garments, 2015–2016

Wearable Works

Wet felted garments that pay homage to inspiring places and people

Wet Felting, 2013–2016

Material Exploration

Material Exploration of wet felting for garment production

Lost in the Wood, 2014

Performative Installation

A sculptural trompe-l’œil becomes an intimate dining space for six people

Old Ideas, 2014

Installation

Fifteen years of artistic inspirations and circuitous makings are culled and collected

Toronto: Scene and Unseen, 2011

Public Art Proposal

Wooden utility poles wrapped with reflective signage material construct a playful and interactive marker for the Toronto/Markham border

Fibonacci Feedback, 2011

Public Art Commission

Stretching the length of a high school athletic field, Fibonacci Feedback is a visual articulation of a pattern of movement

Generations, 2010

Public Art Commisssion

Portraits of a grandmother and her granddaughter are linked by a series of transforming links generated by a childhood toy and suggestive of DNA helixes

Meeting, 2010

Public Art Commission

Iconographic stripes and concentric circles, suggestive of both ancient symbols and contemporary wayfinding systems, overlap above a transit shelter

Vagabond Vitrine, 2010

Interactive Street Level Installation

A modernist display case, having wandered the streets, finds temporary solace in a storefront window containing elements of a nature diorama

Bubble, 2009

Interactive Installation and Performance Structure

A bicycle generator powers an inflatable bubble and its studio contents which are occupied by the artist and her visitors working in collaboration

Sweetspot, 2008

Public Art Proposal

Parabolic and reflective structures provide a performative sound playground for high school students

Fröbel House, 2008

Research and Development

Fröbel textbook illustration of ‘house’ is sewn into a tetra-pak substrate

Chio TV Party, 2008

Research and Development

A child’s lego ‘party’ is embroidered in tetra-pak material as a contemporary take on Fröbel’s Second Occupation ‘Sewing-Out’

Chio Book, 2008

Research and Development

An illustrated assembly manual for the Lego character “Chio,” designed by the artist’s daughter, is disguised as a found piece of historical ephemera

The Second Occupation, 2007

Project

The exercises of Fröbel’s Second Occupation ‘Sewing-Out’ are assembled in an archival format, disguised as a collection of found historical ephemera

Fröbel Inspired Books, 2007

Research and Development

Old books are used to carry out the exercises of Fröbel’s First Occupation ‘Perforating’ and staged as historical ephemera

The Occupational Travel Kit, 2007

Tool

A traveling studio kit which facilitates the production of Fröbel works of ‘Perforating’ and ‘Sewing-Out’

The Terrarium Project, 2006

Collaborative Exhibition

The aesthetics of factual authority and the worlds of wonder-filled storytellers are meshed in a project about a fictitious institution and its unlikely collections

The First Occupation, 2005

Installation

A screen perforated with a galaxy of Disney princesses and Digimon characters is illuminated with a homespun bathtub drain video loop, reminiscent of the night sky

Occupations of an Unknown Kindergartner, 2005

Installation

A display case which stages reference materials, tools and fabricated ephemera related to the studies of an imagined teacher of Fröbel’s kindergarten program

Manchester Letherium, 2005

Collaborative Proposal

The design of a repository for unwanted collections takes shape as a sunken labyrinth of crystalline display cases and a neighbouring disposal tower

Jetstream, 2005

Public Art Proposal

Byproducts of a local aerospace manufacturing facility are sculpturally re-engaged in a busy urban parkette

The Jack Pine Remembered, 2003

Public Art Commission

The pixilated structure acts as a metaphor for the way we build and interpret infinite pieces of information into memories, fading and revealing

Four men whom I never met…, 2003

Installation

Portraits of four ancestors reflect on the mechanism of reproduction and the site of the mother’s body as a place which has been occupied by the DNA of strangers

From Here Right Now, 2002

Public Art Commission

24 anamorphic images in a Toronto subway shift from abstract shapes to ones that appear to hover in space, lending the illusion of sculptural form

The Visitor, 1998-2000

Series of Sculptural Works

Found containers act as sites for custom built compartmentalized interiors which take on surprising characteristics

First Snow, Tokyo, 1999

Site-specific Installation

An artist’s shack, displayed as an historic site, is visited by the elements of nature once revered and depicted by the artist himself

First Snow, 1998

Site-specific Installation

As gallery crews work to install a new exhibition snow begins to fall, transforming the utilitarian contents and the space itself into sculpture

The Silence and the Storm, 1998

Installation

Painted panels, based on reproductions from a book, are mounted over the pages themselves in a testimony to the objecthood of the original paintings

Northern Night, 1996

Public Art Commission

The solace of a beautiful northern night and the companionship of friends and song, an escape for those who can no longer access this experience

Central Neighbourhood House, 1995

Donor Recognition Artwork

The collective pattern of a community of contributors; variety, colour, a myriad of individuals

Captured & Escaped, 1995

Site-specific Installation

While ‘native’ wildflowers have been captured in the confines of this historic military fort, the ‘alien’ wildfowers have escaped and are running down the embankment…

At This Point, 1995

Commissioned by the Toronto Sculpture Garden

A buried urban waterway is glimpsed through the reconstruction of an historic lighthouse and buoy

Covenant House, 1994

Commission

The gap between the real and the represented is explored as things that are seen as ungraspable and seductive become manifested in real time and space

Like Ancient Pots…, 1993

Installation

Here we are literally and figuratively ‘submerged’ between realities produced by language and images…

Re Appearances, 1993

Installation

Seven Paraskeva Clark paintings are placed alongside objects they depict in a reconstruction of her living room as the power of objects and their painted representations are considered

The Nature of Giving, 1992

Donor Recognition Artwork

The solace of nature and the beauty of the handmade offer escape to those who must remain indoors during a time of illness

Punti di Vista, 1992

Installation

Plaster casts of architectural elements present in the exhibition space replace their photographic depictions in catalogues, honouring the physicality of experience

Aqueduct, 1992

Installation

The truncated hallway of a 12th Century building in Spoleto, Italy, plays host to kinetic light patterns, referencing the town’s famous aqueduct

Patterns of Commitment, 1991

installation

A wrestling with the seduction of photography, our voyeuristic desire to look and our inability to really know

Collectors (Michael C. Rockefeller), 1990

Installation

Collections, at times, have become representations as much of their compilers as of their original creators

Decalog, 1990

Anniversary Exhibition

The 10-year history of an artist-run centre as viewed through the documents in its archive; gaps, misinterpretations and inaccuracies undoubtedly resulting

Research & Discovery, 1988

Installation

Objects depicted in National Geographic Magazine are meticulously fabricated and placed alongside their images in an attempt to bridge the gap