Laurel Woodcock was the area coordinator for Extended Practices, a component of the undergraduate program at the University of Guelph that focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to art production. Her work in situational art, video, photography, sculpture and editions make use of everyday objects and situations to shed light on language and perception. She completed her BFA at Concordia University and her MFA at NSCAD.
A large portion of Woodcock’s studio practice culled from familiar language; a turn of phrase, song lyric, punctuation mark, typography, visual trope, or element of syntax. These became materials from which she explored the problems and possibilities of language, its formal and connotative qualities and malleable meanings. Her work has been exhibited widely in Canada including the Power Plant and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver and internationally in the United States, France, England, Spain, Egypt and Scotland. Laurel’s work can be found in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Art Museum at University of Toronto, BMO, TD Bank, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and Fasken Martineau LLP among many others.