Sylvia Safdie was born in Aley, Lebanon in 1942 and lived in Israel before moving to Canada in 1953. She obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Concordia University in 1975. Based in Montreal, her work has been exhibited in Canada, USA, Europe and China.
Through her paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations, and by the use of natural materials such as sand, earth and dust, Sylvia Safdie’s work is both poetic and meditative. Her video art, begun in 2001, can be seen as a natural extension of her previous work in static media; these videos become a moving canvas on which to explore ideas of space and time, stasis and movement, sound and silence, embodiment and nature.
SELECTED CATALOGUES ON SYLVIA SAFDIE
2018 These Waters Have Stories To Tell, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Catalogue supported by the University of Ottawa, Celina Jeffery
2013 The Video Art of Sylvia Safdie, McGill – Queen’s University Press, Montréal, Eric Lewis
2010 Capsule 3, Sylvia Safdie: Alphabet of Passage, Galerie d’art Leonard & Bina Ellen, Montréal, Sherry Simon
2004 The Testimony of Trees, Firehouse Gallery, Irena Zantovska Murray
2003 Galerie d’art Leonard & Bina Ellen, Irena Zantovská Murray
2000 Sylvia Safdie: Autres territories/Other Places, Centre culturel de l’Ambassade du Canada, Paris. Texte de Gérard Wajcman.
1995 Sylvia Safdie, Dictions, Montréal, André Lamarre
1987 Sylvia Safdie, Centre Saidye Bronfman, (1987), James D. Campbell
FILM
2000 Sylvia Safdie, Earth Marks – Gardienne des pierres, a film by Doina Harap, documentary, 48 minutes (English and French versions)
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