Mark Joslin

Mark Joslin was born in Victoria, BC in 1956. He was educated in Calgary and graduated from the University of Calgary in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Philosophy. He worked for the Calgary Vocational Rehabilitation and Research Institute and also as a curator of the Esso Resources Ltd art collection before doing post-graduate studies in art history at the University of Victoria (1983-86). In 1986 he was hired to work at Alberta Culture's Visual Arts Branch in Edmonton and in 1987, moved to the Edmonton Art Gallery (now the Art Gallery of Alberta) as an Associate Curator with the Gallery's Extension Department. He assumed the position of Executive Director with Latitude 53 Society of Artists in Edmonton in 1991.

Mark Joslin was known primarily as a museum curator and administrator and did important research into the work of many historical Western Canadian artists, including W.L. Stevenson, John Snow and Maxwell Bates. As well, in his role as a curator of exhibitions at the Edmonton Art Gallery and Latitude 53, he gave great encouragement and support to many contemporary artists living in the Province. In addition to his official public role, he was also a very accomplished artist with wide-ranging abilities. Because he made his living as an arts administrator, he did not feel that it was appropriate to actively promote and display his own work. After his death from cancer in 1996, however, forty-eight of his artworks drawn from his twenty years of exploration as an artist were featured in a memorial exhibition that was shown to much acclaim at the University of Alberta Hospital McMullen Gallery and later as part of The Works Visual Arts Festival in Edmonton in 1997.