BIOGRAPHY

Short Bio: Elaine Whittaker is a Canadian visual artist working at the intersection of art, science, medicine, and ecology. Biology is the basis for her installations, sculptures, paintings, drawings, and digital images. These works incorporate traditional and unconventional materials: paint, pigment, wax, mosquitoes, salt crystals, human/animal cells, textiles, repurposed fibres, and live microorganisms.

She has exhibited in art and science galleries and museums in North America, Europe, China, South Korea, and Australia including the Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), and the Red Head Gallery (Toronto, Canada). She was one of the first Artists-in-residence with the Ontario Science Centre (Toronto, Canada) in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto. Her work has been featured in art, literary, and medical journals, and in books including Viral Behaviors: Viruses and Viral Phenomena Across Science, Technology & the Arts by Roberta Buiani (2024), BioArt: Altered Realities by William Myers (2015), and, On Media, on Technology, On Life: Interviews with Innovators edited by Arthur Clay & Timothy J. Senior (2021).

Full Bio: Elaine Whittaker is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist. Her artworks are an intersection of art, science, medicine and ecology.

She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including among others, Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), National Library of Latvia/RIXC Centre for New Media Culture (Riga, Latvia), Ontario Science Centre (Toronto, Canada), THEMUSEUM (Kitchener, Canada), BioBat Art Space (Brooklyn, US), Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, Canada), MUSA Museum of Salt (Cervia, Italy), Science Gallery London (UK), Riddoch Art Gallery (Mount Gambier, Australia), Harcourt House (Edmonton, Canada), Fudan University Science Gallery, (Shanghai, China), Gwacheon National Science Museum (Seoul, South Korea), Islip Art Museum (Long Island, US), Science Gallery Dublin (Ireland), Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art (Winnipeg, Canada), Yukon Arts Centre Gallery (Whitehorse, Canada), McMaster Museum of Art (Hamilton, Canada), Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (US), Kunsthaus Santa Fe (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico), and Red Head Gallery (Toronto, Canada).

Whittaker has been an invited participant in residencies, workshops and festivals on science, art and medicine, and a featured artist on digital galleries including 1000 Scores: Pieces for Here, Now & Later; Art the Science; MEDinART; and Photomediations Machine. Artworks have been highlighted in literary, art, and medical periodicals and magazines, including the Humber Literary Review, Hamilton Arts & Letters, Interalia Magazine, SciArt Magazine, E-Squared Magazine, VLAK, Wreck Park, Clot Magazine and Tussle Magazine. Her work is featured in books including Viral Behaviors: Viruses & Viral Phenomena across Science, Technology, & the Arts by Roberta Buiani (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024); William Myers' BioArt: Altered Realities (Thames & Hudson 2015); and in On Media, on Technology, On Life: Interviews with Innovators by editors Arthur Clay & Timothy J. Senior (River Publishers 2021).

In 2018 she was one of the first Artists-in-Residence with the Ontario Science Centre (Toronto) in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto. She has collaborated with scientists as Artist-in-Residence at the Pelling Laboratory for Augmented Biology (University of Ottawa), and has participated in two residences at the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Alberta). She has been a recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council. She holds a BFA in Visual Art from York University, Toronto, an Art Diploma from Toronto School of Art, and BA in Anthropology from Carleton University, Ottawa. Since 2004 she has been an active member of the Red Head Gallery collective in Toronto, Canada.