Max Dean

Max Dean was born in Leeds, England in 1949, and received a B.A. in art history from the University of British Columbia in 1971.  Since then he has had a prolific career as a performance, video and installation artist, producing work that actively questions and explores the relationships between the artist, the spectator and the work of art.  He has employed a diversity of materials from traditional drawing tools to cars, found objects, bathtubs, and television monitors as well as new technologies to explore issues pertaining to the psychological and metaphorical aspects of interactivity.  

He has exhibited widely – both  alone and in over twenty group exhibitions – beginning with Pacific Vibrations at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1973 - and internationally – in England, Germany, and twice at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and in 2001 for The Table:  Childhood now in the Gallery’s collection.   He taught at the University of Ottawa (1979-88), and later at York University.  From 1985-86, he was artist in residence at the National Museum of Science and Technology, Ottawa, and in 1996, he received the Jean Chalmers National Visual Arts Award.