BORN
1973 in Toronto, Canada
Artists
John Monteith is a Canadian cross-disciplinary artist whose practice spans drawing, textiles, photography, painting, and collaborative initiatives. Informed by the layered histories of cities and their built environments, his work engages questions of identity, community, memory, and transformation. Monteith approaches architecture through an improvisational process, translating structures into asymmetrical geometries that dissolve and reconfigure space. His drawings, often realized on transparent drafting film, create palimpsests of overlapping forms and colour, while his textile works extend these explorations into craft traditions, highlighting the shared rhythms of architecture, labour, and material.
By layering mark-making, transparency, and rhythm, Monteith produces works that exist between representation and abstraction, echoing the fluidity of urban space. His practice meditates on how we inhabit, navigate, and reimagine architectural form, drawing attention to the ways movement, music, and dance intersect with the spatial poetics of the city. Through these processes, he creates compositions that question fixity, instead emphasizing transformation, multiplicity, and the experiential nature of place.
Monteith has exhibited internationally at venues including Tate Modern, London; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin; X Initiative, New York; and the Taipei Contemporary Art Center, among others. His work has been featured in Art in America, Mousse Magazine, Canadian Art, C Magazine, and The New Yorker, and is held in public and private collections worldwide, including the Swatch Foundation, Shanghai; Scotiabank, Toronto; and BNY Mellon, New York. He lives and works in Toronto, where he teaches at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.
2024 Colored pencil on drafting film H 84.5 x 61 cm 2024 手工染色、打结、缝制的纯新西兰羊毛 H 134.5 x 106.7 cm 2024 100% hand-dyed, hand-tufted & hand-stitched New Zealand wool H 134.5 x 106.7 cm 1973 in Toronto, Canada 2008 1997 2025 2024 2023 2019 2018 2017 2016 2014 2012 2011 2010 2009 2007 2006 2005 2004 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2011 2009 2008 2005 Majudia, Montreal, Canada
Configurations of Urban Space
Configurations of Urban Space
Grands Ensembles #10
Grands Ensembles #10 (A Recomposition)
Grands Ensembles #10 (A Recomposition)
Grands Ensembles #7
Grands Ensembles #8
Grands Ensembles #9
Grands Ensembles #9 (A Recomposition)
Grands Ensembles #9 (A Recomposition)
Minskaya #11
Minskaya #12
BORN
EDUCATION
Parsons The New School for Design, MFA Graduate, New York, NY
The Ontario College of Art and Design, Graduate, Toronto, ONSOLO EXHIBITIONS
Spatial Configurations, a Particular Rhythm, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai, China
Signal to Noise, collaborative exhibition with Lou Sheppard, Mónica Reyes Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Signal to Noise, collaborative exhibition with Lou Sheppard, Hunt Gallery, Toronto, ON
Urban Fabric, Atelier Zerebecky with Art Yuyuan, Shanghai, China
In This Moment, I: Project Space, Beijing, CN
Kindred Spirits, Taipei Contemporary Art Centre, Taipei, TW
Resonances, Division Gallery, Toronto, ON
Cabinet, Galerie Wenger, Zurich, CH
Somewhere Else, Division Gallery, Toronto, ON
In the Absence (of), 8eleven, Toronto, ON
At Night All Cats Are Grey, O’Born Contemporary, Toronto, ON
Memorial Day, O’Born Contemporary, Toronto, ON
Grace, The Artlog Loft, Brooklyn, NY
Lost Highway, O’Born Contemporary, Toronto, ON
River’s Edge, Dumbo Art Under The Bridge Festival, Brooklyn, NY
Undercurrents, XEXE Gallery, Toronto, ON
(Re) constructing Love, XEXE Gallery, Toronto, ON
Christopher, Solo Exhibition, Toronto, ON
Concealed Weapon, Galerie Accidentelle, Montreal, QC
am: After Midnight, XEXE Gallery, Toronto, ONSELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
As Long as it Lasts, Atelier Christian Awe, Berlin, DE curated by Sarah Belden
Tattarrattat, Hunt Gallery, Toronto, ON
Giving Entry, Namara Project Space, Toronto, ON
Voicing the City, Beijing 22, The German Embassy, Beijing, CN curated by Antonie Angerer and Anna-Viktoria Eschbach
Parallel Universes: Parafacts and Parafictions, Design Republic, Shanghai, CN curated by Peipei Han
Alle, Galerie Wenger, Zürich, CH
Good Trouble, Artists Respond to the 2020 Presidential Election, Whitebox, Manhattan, NY
Experiments, Galerie Wenger, Zürich, CH
Techne and Art: Ecologies of Pre- and Post-modern Subjectivities, Space Station Gallery Beijing, CN Curated by You Mi
4²+1, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai
Art Biesenthal, Mikel and Ayla Hecken Foundation, Biesenthal, DE
7th Beijing Biennial, National Museum of Art, Beijing, CN
Alternative Histories, Division Gallery, Toronto, ON
Cabinet, Galerie Wenger, Zurich, CH
Watch My Face To read My Thoughts, LUMA Project Space, Texas State University, San Marcos Texas, US
Alle, Galerie Wenger, Zurich, CH
Alpina Huus, House of Deep Transformations in 11 Acts, Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin, Germany, curated by Elise Lammer and Denis Pernet
Stories Told, O’Born Contemporary, Toronto, ON
New Associations, SALTS, Basel, Switzerland, Curated by Elise Lammer
Reconstalation, Prak-sis N3w M3edia Art Festival, Chicago, IL
Vector Issue 5, Schau Fenster, Raum für Kunst, Berlin, Germany
The Assemblance of Presence, Galerie Wenger, Zurich, Switzerland
Echoing Nostalgia, San Art, curated by Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Under New Management, ODD Gallery, The Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, curated by Suzanne Carte & Su-Ying Lee, Dawson City, Yukon, Canada
Translation, O’Born Contemporary, Toronto, ON, Curated by Rachel Farquharson
Up Against It, Munch Gallery, Manhattan, NY, Curated by Billy Miller
10×10, The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, ON
Petit-Mort: Recollections of a Queer Public, Forever and Today, Manhattan, NY
B-B-B-B-Bad, Anna Kustera Gallery, Manhattan, NY, Curated by Billy Miller and DougMcClemont
City Speaks; A Conversation at the Dinner Table, Atelier Oliver Kunkel, Presented by CAT Cologne, Cologne, Germany
No Soul For Sale, K-48 Kontinuum; The Tate Modern, London, England
NY Art Book Fair “Straight To Hell Outpost,” PS1 Long Island City, NY
131, O’Born Contemporary, Toronto, ON
Geometry and Gesture, Elga Wimmer Gallery, Manhattan, NY
No Soul For Sale, K-48 Kontinuum; X-Initiative, Manhattan, NY
Overlap, Elga Wimmer Gallery, Manhattan, NY
Paper In the Wind, Thomas Jaeckel Gallery, Manhattan, NY
Summer Camp; Like a Moth to the Flame, Exile, Berlin, Germany
Zwischen, Galerie Stefan Ropke, Cologne, Germany
K-48, John Connelly Presents, Manhattan, NY
O Canada, Gallery MC, Manhattan NY, Curated by Miriam Katz
Parsons MFA Exhibition, The Kitchen, Manhattan NY
Art With Heart, The Carlu with Ritchies Auctioneers and Appraisers, Toronto, ON
Signs of Life, 141 North 7th St, Williamsburg, NY, Curated by David Gibson
Glocal, Canadian Art Foundation, Toronto, ON 2006
Art In The Workplace, The Investors Group in Association with The Toronto Arts Council, Toronto, ON Curated by William HuffmanSpecial Projects, Commissions and Art Fairs
Resonances, Photofairs, Staged Section, Shanghai, CN
Kindred Spirits, Unique Multiples, Sarah Belden Fine Art, Madrid, Spain
Art Toronto, Division Gallery, Toronto, ON
Art Toronto, Division Gallery, Toronto, ON
Drawing Now Paris, Paris, France, Galerie Wenger, Zurich, Switzerland
Art Toronto, O’Born Contemporary, Toronto, ON
Drawing Now Paris, Paris, France, Galerie Wenger, Zurich, Switzerland
Kunst 13 Zurich, Galerie Wenger, Zurich, Switzerland
Art Toronto, O’Born Contemporary, Toronto, ON
The Expat Effect, Canadian Art Dealers Association, The Armory Show, Manhattan NY
Closer to God, Curatorial Project, The AAF, Manhattan, NY
Hide and Seek; Living Room Project, Flux Factory in collaboration with Openhouse New York.
K-48, Aqua Art Fair, Miami, FL
Reading Room, Pulse Art Fair, Manhattan NY, Curated by Jeffrey Walkowiak
Perpetual Motion, Toronto Alternative Art Fair International, The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto
Gallery Commission, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, ONCollections
The Bank of Montreal, Toronto, Canada
The New School, Manhattan, New York, USA
Torys LLP, Toronto, Canada
TD Bank, Toronto, Canada
BNY Mellon, New York, USA
Morris and Associates, London, England