David Hoffos
David Hoffos is an internationally recognized, Lethbridge-based artist in film, video, and installation art with more than 20 years of independent practice. Hoffos grew up in Australia and Calgary before moving to study, live and work in Lethbridge, Alberta. Hoffos received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Great Distinction from the University of Lethbridge in 1994. He has since been invited to several residencies, including three at the Banff Centre (now Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity).
Hoffos began making experimental films at the age of 10. Since 1992, he has participated in over 50 group shows, hundreds of screenings, dozens of school and community collaborations, a few works for the stage and more than 40 solo exhibitions, including a survey at the National Gallery of Canada in 2009. Since 1995, model-making and miniature worlds have played a central and evolving role in Hoffos’ illusionistic installation work. His critically acclaimed five-phase series of works, Scenes from the House Dream, has become well known for its “technologically conjured effects harking back to early forms of cinema and magic lantern shows.” In 2003, Hoffos (with Trépanier Baer) launched the first phase in this five-year series of linked installations. His single-channel work has been shown in festivals in more than twenty countries, and he represented Canada at the 48th Oberhausen (Germany) Short Film Festival in 2002.
Hoffos’ solo exhibitions include Catastrophe, (1998, Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary, AB; 1999, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga, ON; 2001, Or Gallery, Vancouver, BC); Singular Electrics (1999, Joan Miro Foundation, Barcelona, Spain) and Another City (1999-2002, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, AB; Trépanier Baer, Calgary, AB; Joao Graça, Lisbon, Portugal; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON; and the Museé des Beaux-Arts, Montréal, PQ). The artist has received many awards including second place in the inaugural Sobey Art Award, December 2002; the 2004 York Wilson Endowment Award; Images Grand Prize, 2007; and a Long-Term Visual Arts Project Grant from the Canada Council in 2008. In 2014 Hoffos completed two permanent public art commission projects in Grande Prairie and Lethbridge.
Hoffos began making experimental films at the age of 10. Since 1992, he has participated in over 50 group shows, hundreds of screenings, dozens of school and community collaborations, a few works for the stage and more than 40 solo exhibitions, including a survey at the National Gallery of Canada in 2009. Since 1995, model-making and miniature worlds have played a central and evolving role in Hoffos’ illusionistic installation work. His critically acclaimed five-phase series of works, Scenes from the House Dream, has become well known for its “technologically conjured effects harking back to early forms of cinema and magic lantern shows.” In 2003, Hoffos (with Trépanier Baer) launched the first phase in this five-year series of linked installations. His single-channel work has been shown in festivals in more than twenty countries, and he represented Canada at the 48th Oberhausen (Germany) Short Film Festival in 2002.
Hoffos’ solo exhibitions include Catastrophe, (1998, Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary, AB; 1999, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga, ON; 2001, Or Gallery, Vancouver, BC); Singular Electrics (1999, Joan Miro Foundation, Barcelona, Spain) and Another City (1999-2002, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, AB; Trépanier Baer, Calgary, AB; Joao Graça, Lisbon, Portugal; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON; and the Museé des Beaux-Arts, Montréal, PQ). The artist has received many awards including second place in the inaugural Sobey Art Award, December 2002; the 2004 York Wilson Endowment Award; Images Grand Prize, 2007; and a Long-Term Visual Arts Project Grant from the Canada Council in 2008. In 2014 Hoffos completed two permanent public art commission projects in Grande Prairie and Lethbridge.