Panya Clark Espinal a Canadian artist/curator with a diploma in Experimental Art and Sculpture Installation from the Ontario College of Art (1988) and an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCADU (2019). Her practice as a multi-media artist has explored mechanisms of representation and their influence on perception. She has attempted to bridge a gap between the world as seen in images and that of tangible experience. Through site-specific installations, exhibitions and public commissions, her work has focused on bringing renewed intimacy to the act of looking while raising questions about authenticity, reproduction, and display.
Clark Espinal sees her creative practice as an engagement with memory. Through it she attempts to reconnect or re-member that which has become disconnected or forgotten. Concurrently, she recognizes the power of material engagement to make memory—to manifest a spatial and temporal connection between her physical surroundings and her intellectual, spiritual, and sensual self. For Clark Espinal, acts of making are a form of ancestral and relational maintenance.
Clark Espinal is a granddaughter of Paraskeva Clark, an ancestral link that has had a profound influence. She has employed Paraskeva’s works within her own practice as an artist, has written catalogue entries about Paraskeva’s works, and acts as a steward of Paraskeva’s legacy.
Clark Espinal’s 2019 master’s thesis, titled Between Stories: The Agency of Story and Living Ways, was developed in collaboration with Elín Agla, a vernacular culture farmer born in Reykjavik and living in Arneshreppur County, a remote region of Iceland where traditional ways of life are in dramatic decline. Clark Espinal and Agla co-authored On Whaleroads and Boatmaking and held a thesis feast that brought together academics, family, friends, and scholarly peers. Clark Espinal travelled to Iceland four times to visit Arneshreppur and participate in Elín Agla’s community endeavours.
From 2019 to 2021, Clark Espinal joined Wapatah, the Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCADU, as a Senior Research Assistant to Gerald McMaster, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Visual Culture and Curatorial Practice. While there, she assisted with researching and writing Iljuwas Bill Reid: Life and Work and Time Holds All the Answers, an anchor essay published for Postcommodity’s exhibition at Remai Modern in 2021.
Clark Espinal’s solo exhibitions include the Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the Canadian Embassy (Tokyo), the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the Oakville Galleries (Oakville), and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (Lethrbridge). She has also exhibited in England, Italy, and Spain. As an active producer of public art commissions, she has created pieces for such prominent organizations as the Toronto Transit Commission, City of Mississauga, BMO, and Covenant House. Her work is included in private and public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada.