Dagmar Dahle
Dagmar Dahle is Lethbridge-based painter, sculptor, and mixed media artist. She uses her artwork to explore animals—especially birds—the environment, and the history of painting. She blends art with craft traditions to produce hand-made objects that invoke numerous aesthetics, including those of Vincent Van Gogh.
After earning her B.F.A. from the University of Victoria (1986), Dahle studied at the Banff Centre’s Winter Programme (1987 – 1989) before achieving her M.F.A. at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1991).
Dahle’s exhibition Lost. Bird. Collecting juxtaposes 132 of her watercolour paintings of birds with images of gowns that were fashionable during the periods when those birds faced extinction, evoking a painful consideration of priorities: the deaths of species versus the passing of decorative trends. The exhibition uses bird imagery to provoke discussion of domination and colonisation, the experience of women, and ecological catastrophe.
In addition to having served a Stichting Atelierbeheer Slak residency in Arnhem, Holland (2007), a Canada Council Residency in Visual Arts: Paris Studio (2008), and an Artscape residency on Toronto Island (2009), Dahle has furthered her arts education with a Jacquard Weaving Workshop at the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles (2005) and two winter programmes at the Banff Centre (1987 – 88, and 1988 – 89). She’s also received numerous grants, including from the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council.
Dahle’s solo exhibitions include Weaving Van Gogh at the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, Lost. Bird. Collecting at Lethbridge’s Southern Alberta Art Gallery, and China Bird at Vancouver’s Grunt Gallery. Her work dwells in the public collections of the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Art Gallery of York University.
Dahle teaches at the Department of Art at the University of Lethbridge.
After earning her B.F.A. from the University of Victoria (1986), Dahle studied at the Banff Centre’s Winter Programme (1987 – 1989) before achieving her M.F.A. at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1991).
Dahle’s exhibition Lost. Bird. Collecting juxtaposes 132 of her watercolour paintings of birds with images of gowns that were fashionable during the periods when those birds faced extinction, evoking a painful consideration of priorities: the deaths of species versus the passing of decorative trends. The exhibition uses bird imagery to provoke discussion of domination and colonisation, the experience of women, and ecological catastrophe.
In addition to having served a Stichting Atelierbeheer Slak residency in Arnhem, Holland (2007), a Canada Council Residency in Visual Arts: Paris Studio (2008), and an Artscape residency on Toronto Island (2009), Dahle has furthered her arts education with a Jacquard Weaving Workshop at the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles (2005) and two winter programmes at the Banff Centre (1987 – 88, and 1988 – 89). She’s also received numerous grants, including from the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council.
Dahle’s solo exhibitions include Weaving Van Gogh at the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, Lost. Bird. Collecting at Lethbridge’s Southern Alberta Art Gallery, and China Bird at Vancouver’s Grunt Gallery. Her work dwells in the public collections of the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Art Gallery of York University.
Dahle teaches at the Department of Art at the University of Lethbridge.