DAVID URBAN
Born in 1966, Toronto. Lives and Works in Toronto, Canada.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021 David Urban: Revisiting Motifs, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2019 Lonely Boy, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2014-15 Love of the Real, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2014 Studio 21 Fine Art, Halifax, Nova Scotia
2013 How to be Broken, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2012 The Eye as Dove, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2011 Returner, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2010 The Konokol: Sound and Reflection, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2009 Works on Paper, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2007 Actual Fiction, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
Time Machines, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
2006 David Urban, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2005 The Constructor, Michael Gibson Gallery, London, ON
A Toy in the Pond, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
2004 Treats for the NightWalker, Moore Gallery, Toronto, ON
2003 The Recognitions, Michael Gibson Gallery, London, ON
The Recognitions, Galerie René Blouin, Montréal, QC
2002 Of Being Numerous, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
2000 David Urban: Transport to Summer, Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto, ON
David Urban: North, Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto, ON
David Urban: Credences of Summer, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
1998 Parts of a World, Galerie Barbara Farber / Rob Jurka, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jim Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MS
Like Seeing Fallen Brightly Away, Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto, ON
1997 Form and Colour Society, Galerie René Blouin, Montréal, QC
Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver, BC
David Urban: New Paintings, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
1996 Farewell to an Idea, Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto, ON
Entering Language, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
1995 Easel Painting, David Beitzel Gallery, New York, NY
The Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB – Project Room
A Cold Spring, Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto, ON
1994 Reform School, Amsterdam, Galerie Barbara Farber, The Netherlands
Expandable Language, Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto, ON
1993 Gubbinal, Gallery 788, Toronto, ON
Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto, ON
SELECTED SOLO MUSEUM AND INSTITUTIONAL EXHIBITIONS
2001-02 Present Tense, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON
1998 Parts of a World, Peel Heritage Complex, Brampton, ON, travelled to McMaster Museum of Art,
Hamilton, ON / University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Waterloo, ON
1989 I.D.A. Gallery, York University, Toronto, ON
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2020 Accidental Geometries, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2019 When the sun departs for a new horizon, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2018 Desire, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2017 David and Goliath, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON
2009 Royal Canadian Academy of Arts: A Celebration of Art, Architecture and Design, Trépanier Baer, Calgary, AB
2008 Walter Redinger & David Urban, Michael Gibson Gallery, London, ON
2004 John Clark, David Urban, Harold Klunder, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
2003 Mixed Media, Gallery Neubacher, Toronto, ON
Gina Rorai, David Urban, Galerie René Blouin, Montréal, QC
2002 Show & Tell, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
2001 Durham Press Inc, Durham, PE
Gottheiner Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MS
Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
2000-01 Les peintures, Galerie Rene Blouin / Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, Montréal, QC
David Urban, Geoffrey James, Galerie René Blouin, Montréal, QC
2000 Christmas Group Show, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
1998 Show and Tell, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
Robert McLean Gallery, Houston, TX
Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GE
Durham Press: 10 Year Anniversary Exhibition, Marcel Sitcoske Gallery, San Francisco Gallery, San Francisco, CA
ARCO Fair, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Madrid, Spain
1997 Galerie Barbara Farber, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Stux Gallery, New York, NY
David Craven, Ric Evans, Tony Sherman, David Urban: On Paper, Sable-Castelli Gallery, Toronto, ON
New Modern: Art and Design in the Post Industrial City, Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, AB
1996-98 Theories of the Decorative, Baumgartner Galleries Inc, Washington, DC:
New Breed-A Synergy of the Arts, Lincoln Center; Saks Fifth Ave, New York, NY
Galerie Barbara Farber, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1994 Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GE
Edward Thorp Gallery, New York, NY
Kunst Rai, Galerie Barbara Farber, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1993 Body / Language, Zavitz Hall Gallery, University of Guelph, ON
SELECTED GROUP MUSEUM AND INSTITUTIONAL EXHIBITIONS
2021 Subject/Object/Process: Works from the Permanent Collection, The Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Markham, ON
(upcoming)
Everywhere We Are, Calgary Contemporary, Calgary, AL
2003 Painters 15, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, ON
2002 Hungry Eyes, Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, NS
Recent Acquisitions, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
Abstraction, Appleton Art Museum, Appleton, FL
Painters 15, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Vancouver Collects, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2001-02 Dialogue(s) Lise Boisseau, Michel Daigneault, David Urban, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal /
Centre d'exposition de Val d'Or, Montréal, QC / Quebec, QC
2001 Signs of the Spirit: The Donovan Collection at St. Michael's College, St. Michael's College, University of Toronto,
Toronto, ON
Suburbia, Art Gallery of Peel, Peel, ON
2000-01 Processes: Caio Fonseca, Jeffrey Graham, Robert Kelly, Antonio Murado, Tony Sherman, David Urban, Mendel Art Gallery,
Saskatoon, SK, travelled to Plug-In Gallery, Winnipeg, MB / Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON / Kelowna Art Gallery,
Kelowna, BC / Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton, AB / Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC
1999 David Urban, Gina Rorai, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, ON
Translinear, McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, ON
Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound, ON
Social Body, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, France
Contingency and Continuity: Negotiating New Abstraction, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, ON
1997 Abstraction / abstraction: géometries provisoires, Musée d'Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne, La Terrasse, France
1996 The Quill of Darkness (with Peter Schuyff and Stephano Peroli), Galleria In Arco, Turin, Italy
1996-98 London Life: Young Contemporaries 1996, London Regional Art Gallery, London, ON
Second Skin, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, ON, travelled to Rodman Hall Arts Centre, St. Catherines, ON /
Lynwood Arts Centre, Simcoe, ON / The Gallery Stratford, Stratford, ON / Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery,
Owen Sound, ON
1995 Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
Musée des beaux arts, Montréal
Vancouver Art Gallery
Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
Museum London, London, ON
Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, ON
Art Gallery of Hamilton
Art Gallery of Mississauga
The Rooms, St Johns, NL
Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery
Art Gallery of Peel
Varley Art Gallery of Markham
Birmingham Art Gallery, Alabama
RESIDENCIES
2012 Koerner Artist in Residence, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
SELECTED LECTURES
2016 “The Artists Talk”, Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts,
2012 “Paul-Emile Borduas and James Wilson Morrice”, Art Gallery of Ontario
2011 “AGO Next debate: Relevance of the Group of Seven”, Art Gallery of Ontario
“The Automatistes (Symposium)”, Albright-Knox Art Gallery
2010 “Kathleen Munn” Art Gallery of Ontario
1999 “David Urban”, Ontario College of Art & Design University
1997 Emily Carr School of Art and Design, Vancouver, BC
1996 University of Lethbridge, AB
“Theories of the Decorative”, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran College of Art and Design
1995 “Wilderness Stations: Painting and Historical Memory”, University of Guelph, U.A.A.C Conference
1994 McMaster Museum of Art, McMaster University
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2014 Meraj, Dhir. “David Urban Leading Canadian Painter, Art Beyond the Parameters of a Canvas” FashCam, June 2014
2012 Woodley, E.C. “David Urban”, Art in America, New York, December 5, 2012
Smith, Pete, “David Urban’s Timely Paintings Impress at Corkin Gallery”,
Canadian Art, October 5, 2012
Baird, Daniel. ‘The Eye as Dove Review”, The Toronto Star, Toronto, September 30, 2012
2007 Dault, Gary Michael. "David Urban at Corkin Gallery", The Globe and Mail, Oct. 20, 2007
2006 Dault, Gary Michael. “Exhibit A: Moving Forms”, The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Friday September 26, 2006, p. R24 (Review)
2003 Kissick, John. “David Urban”, Canadian Art Magazine, Summer 2003. p. 95
2002 Dault, Gary Michael. “Urban's abstracts get figurative”, The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Saturday December 28, 2002,
p. R6 (Review)
“Present Tense #24”, Amigo Motel, December 25, 2002
Milroy, Sarah. “Brushes with the best”, The Globe and Mail, May 11, 2002
2001 “Translinear”, Canadian Art (Review), Fall 2001
Enright, Robert. “The Miraculous Question of Looking, An Interview with David Urban”, Border Crossings, Vol. 20, No. 4,
2001, p. 18-31
2000 Cheetham, Mark. “Jazz Lines”, Canadian Art, Vol. 17, No. 4, Winter 2000, p. 86
Couelle, Jennifer. “Paysages”, La Presse, Montreal, April 1, 2000, p. D17
“David Urban at Sable-Castelli”, The Globe and Mail, Toronto, October 21, 2000. p. R10
1999 “Don't look at me like that – and other imperatives of Recent Abstract Painting”, Canadian Art, Spring 2000.
Vol. 17, No. 1, p. 62-69
Jordan, Betty Ann. “David Urban”, Toronto Life Magazine, Vol 34, No 26, October 2000, p. 46
George, Kate. CJRT Radio Interview, January 27, 1999
“The New Abstraction: to understand the new school of abstract art, think of a heartbeat captured on canvas”,
The National Post, February 6, 1999
MacKay, Gillian. “David Urban at McMaster Museum of Art”, The Globe and Mail, February 6, 1999. p. C13
Somers, David et al. “David Urban: Parts of a World”, Art Gallery of Peel, 1999
Wachtel, Eleanor. “The Arts Tonight”, CBC Radio Interview, February 1, 1999
1998 Brackert, Donald. “Paintings Become the Real World”, The Globe and Mail, October 4, 1998
Cullum, Jerry. “What Abstraction Represents”, Atlanta Journal-Constitution June 10, 1998
Griswold, Alicia. “A Journey is Not a Commute Artists and Madmen Weekly”, Vol. 4, No. 13, May 22-28, 1998
Kisil, Gerry. “Consuming urbanization”, Border Crossings, Vol. 17, No. 1, Winter 1998, p. 46-47
Locke, Donald. “Quantum Leap: Construction, Representation and Action at Marcia Wood”, Creative Loafing,
Atlanta, May 23, 1998
“The drip turns 50”, The Globe and Mail, Saturday, Jan 24, 1998, p. C1 & 6
“Paintings as defiance, a gesture against the void”, The Globe and Mail, May 15, 1998
Maclear, Kyo. Toronto Life, May 1998
St. Gelais, Therese. “David Urban at Galerie Rene Blouin”, Parachute 89, Fall 1998, p. 43-44
1997 Lamarche, Bernard. Le Devoir, July 11, 1997
Marchand, Keith. “David Urban's use of the abstract”, Montreal Mirror, June 19-26, 1997
Lehmann, Henry. “David Urban's abstracts also have something to do with soul-searching”,
The Montreal Gazette, July 12, 1997
De Chassey, Eric. “La peinture vivante”, L'Oeil, October 1997
Moos, David. “In the Suburbs of the Mind”, Art + Text, November 1997
Muller, Brian. “Abstraction / abstractions”, Flash Art. October 1997
Queen Street Quarterly I, Vol. 1, Toronto, Spring 1997
Scott, Michael. “Abstract Urban Art : Toronto Painter David Urban's work announces that modern art is alive and well”,
The Vancouver Sun, October 22, 1997, p. C5
1996 Miller, Earl. “Anne Lazare – Mirvish & David Urban: abstraction revived in Yorkville”, Artfocus, Vol. 4, No. 4,
Aug/Sept 1996, pp. 11-13
Tousley, Nancy. “If you love painting”, The Calgary Herald, April 6, 1996
1995 Breismaster, Holly. Artworld Magazine, (Review), Issue No. 21, Spring 1995
“Urban's Abstracts: Over the Top”, The Globe and Mail, March 4, 1995
“The Triumph of Canadian Art”, The Globe and Mail, June 12, 1995
1995 “Night and Day”, Canadian Art (cover), Vol. 12, Winter 1995
1994 Mays, John Bentley. “Urban's Oblongs: Like a Mirror”, The Globe and Mail, April 2, 1994
Moos, David. “Punctual Painting”, Amsterdam: Galerie Barbara Farber, 1994
“Rising Stars of Canadian Culture”, The Globe and Mail, December 31, 1994
CATALOGUES
2005 Moos, David; Campbell, James D. The Constructor: David Urban, Michael Gibson Gallery. London, ON, 2005
2002 Portis, Ben. Present Tense: Contemporary Project Series No 24, David Urban, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON, 2002
2001 Beaudoin, Marie-France; Lussier, Real. Dialogues, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal et Centre d'exposition
de Val-d'Or, Montréal, QC, 2001
1999 De Chassey, E. Social Body, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1999
Shuebrook Ron. Contingency and Continuity : negotiating new abstraction, MacDonald Stewart Art Centre,
Guelph, ON, 1999
Enright, Robert (interview), “The poetics of painting – a conversation with David Urban,” Processes : Caio Fonseca,
Jeffrey Graham, Robert Kelly, Antonio Murado, Tony Sherman, David Urban, Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton, AB, 1999
1998 Cheetham, Mark; Moos, David; Pagel, David. David Urban: Parts of a world, Art Gallery of Peel, McMaster Museum of Art,
University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Peel, ON, 1998
1997 De Chassey, Eric, Morineau, C. Abstraction/Abstraction, Géometries Provisoires, Saint-Etienne: Musée d'Art Moderne,
Paris, France, 1997
1996 Moos, David. The Quill of Darkness, Galleria in Arco, Turin, Italy, 1996
Patton, James. Young Contemporaries, London Regional Art Gallery, London, ON, 1996
SELECTED AWARDS
2009 Alumni of the Year Award, University of Guelph
2003 Elected Royal Canadian Academy of Art
1995 Canada Council B Grant
1993 Ontario Arts Council Exhibition Grant
Graduate Fellowship, University of Guelph
Ontario Graduate Scholarship, University of Guelph
1991 Ontario Graduate Scholarship, University of Windsor
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
2005 External Thesis Advisor, University of Waterloo
1994 Sessional Instructor: Painting, University of Guelph
1993 Teaching Assistantship: Art Theory and Criticism, University of Guelph
Sessional Instructor: Drawing, University of Guelph
1992 Teaching Assistantship: Painting, University of Guelph
1991 Teaching Assistantship: Romanticism to Modernism Department of English Literature, University of Windsor
1990 Teaching Assistantship: Literary Genres, Department of English Literature, University of Windsor
EDUCATION
1992-94 MFA Visual Arts (Painting / Drawing), University of Guelph
1990-91 MA English Literature and Creative Writing, University of Windsor
1985-89 BA English Literature & BFA Visual Arts, York University