Biography

Chris Ironside grew up dreaming of moving to New York City, acting on the soap operas “All My Children” or “One Life To Live”, becoming a celebrity and winning a daytime Emmy. He became an artist instead and moved to Toronto. Dealing in the currency of gay images, he draws and photographs, decontextualizes song lyrics and glitters with confidence. His work has been exhibited throughout North America and has been featured in the Globe and Mail, C Magazine and Headmaster Magazine, and exhibited at Angell Gallery, Daniel Faria Gallery, the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives and the Gladstone Hotel (Toronto), Four-Eleven Gallery (Provincetown), Art Gaysel (Miami) and with ClampArt at the Art on Paper Fair (New York). His most recent body of work, “Living For The Fame”, was exhibited at the Art Gallery of Peterborough (2019-2020) and marked his first solo museum show.

He received his MFA from York University and BA from the University of Guelph and has over the course of two decades taught photography at artist-run centres, the University of Guelph and York University. Currently he has begun his teaching stream tenure-track appointment as Assistant Professor of drawing and photography at York University.