"The dense hermeticism in Eyre's vision generates a fascinating journey for the viewer, rewarded with a glimpse into a very complex psyche. A magnificent body of work." —Canadian Art
Known for the theatricality of her self-portraits and the doubles that populate her images, disrupting the fixity of identity, Janieta Eyre is one of Canada's most original, provocative, and internationally recognized photographers. Spanning her seven major series (1993–2013), Incarnations is the first collection to make accessible a representative body of her work, including contributions by prominent Canadian writers and artists.
Janieta Eyre is an internationally acclaimed photographer based in Toronto. She took up photography professionally in 1995. In her distinctive self-portraits, Eyre frequently presents herself as a set of twins, engaging with the possibility of polymorphous identities and fictional doubles. Often employing fantastic and carnivalesque settings, she uses props and costumes to disrupt the fixity of image and identity. She manipulates the theatricality at play in her work by incorporating art-historical and literary references, while leaving space for the integration of fictional representations.
Eyre was born in London, England. She received a degree in philosophy from the University of Toronto, studied journalism at Ryerson University and photography at the Ontario College of Art and Design.
Eyre has exhibited her work internationally including in Italy, Germany, Iceland, the United States as well as across Canada. She was invited to participate in the Kwanju Biennale in South Korea. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (Ottawa), the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Microsoft (New York), and the National Gallery of Iceland (Reykjavik). She has participated in Scotiabank's CONTACT Photography Festival numerous times. "Janieta Eyre: Constructing Mythologies," was a featured exhibition at the 2013 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.
Eyre held a residency at the Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Ireland in 1999 and is the recipient of the Duke and Duchess of York Award in Photography (1997) and the Chalmers Award (2014). Eyre currently teaches photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She is represented by Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects in Toronto and New York, and by Galerie Samuel Lallouz in Montreal.
