Biographies > Judy Gouin

Judy Gouin grew up in Ottawa and Kingston. Her father was posted twice by the Canadian Air Force to London, England – Judy was born there the first time and trained at the Chelsea School of Art the second time. Judy had always known she wanted to be an artist since eleven years old. Judy Gouin initially was mainly a printmaker / photographer. The TAG collection has two photographic silk screen pints with intense details of moss, earth and stone (Blue Boulders, and White Stick). She did most of her work at the Open Studio in Toronto. Then in the 1980’s she stopped her art career for a few years to become the Ontario Arts Council Officer for Film, Photography and Video. With this income, Judy was able to decide where she wished to live and chose Temagami. Here she continued making art, but after what she says was a period of long hard thought, she discovered she wanted to return to painting. Judy has had numerous solo exhibitions, particularly at Joan Ferneyhough Gallery, Agnes Etherington and Temiskaming Art Gallery (for the Art Gallery of Ontario Artists With Their Work Program in 1985). As well as TAG, her work is in public collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Ontario Art Gallery. She also has works in numerous private and corporate collections. Judy lectures on art, writes, and teaches. She combines this with administrative and consultancy work. 

Being an artist in northern Ontario.  I chose to live here, because I fell in love with it as a child.  These pieces were made in Toronto when I was an urban artist in the daylight and wannabe-northern artist under cover of night.  I was well aware of what I was leaving behind…I was walking away from the mainstream…to what is widely considered to be a backwater…To me, however, the real challenges of contemporary cultural expression are here, in the conflicting visions of permanent residents and summer cottagers, of resource industries and ecologists, …of those whose identity is deeply rooted in our country’s past and those who inhabit a virtual global community of relentless consumers, of French-speaking Catholics and everyone else, of First Nations and everyone else.  This is my country.  I belong here.