{{short description|Canadian artist (born 1961)}} {{Use dmy dates|date= September 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Laura Millard | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth year|1961}} | birth_place = Calgary, Alberta | death_date = | death_place = | nationality = | spouse = | education = Alberta College of Art, Calgary (1979–1981); Bachelor of Fine Arts, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1981–1983); Master of Fine Arts, Concordia University, Montreal (1989–1992) | awards = | known_for = multimedia artist, educator | website = lauramillard.com }}
'''Laura Millard''' {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|RCA}} (born 1961) is a Canadian contemporary artist. She uses for her installations drawings and videos records of the marks left on the earth obtained from drones, such as traces of the tracks of skates and snowmobiles on ice in northern Canada in a long-term investigation of ways to reinvent the landscape tradition of Canada.<ref>{{cite web |title=Laura Millard in Power Play: Hockey in Contemporary Art |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-W--xBtOqk |website=www.youtube.com |publisher=Peel Art Gallery and Museum, 2022 |access-date=21 September 2022}}</ref><ref name="mcClure " >{{cite web |title=trace |url=https://www.visualartscentre.ca/mcclure-gallery/exhibitions/laura-millard |website=www.visualartscentre.ca |publisher=McClure Visual Arts Centre, Montreal |access-date=21 September 2022}}</ref> She also is an educator with over many years of experience working at OCAD University (she began teaching there in 1995) and a writer; she lives and works in Toronto.
==Career== Millard was born in Calgary and attended the Alberta College of Art, Calgary (1970–1981). She received a BFA degree from NSCAD University in 1983 and an MFA degree from Concordia University, Montreal in 1992. She is an associate professor in the graduate program at OCAD University where she has worked since 1995.<ref name="OCAD " >{{cite web |title=Staff directory |url=https://www2.ocadu.ca/bio/laura-millard |website=www2.ocadu.ca |date=15 February 2017 |publisher=OCAD |access-date=21 September 2022}}</ref> She also has lectured and taught at art galleries and universities across Canada. In 1998, she was the author of ''Algonquin Memories: Tom Thomson in Algonquin Park''<ref>{{cite web |last1=Millard |first1=Laura |title=Algonquin Memories: Tom Thomson in Algonquin Park |url=http://library.gallery.ca/search~S1?/amillard%2C+laura/amillard+laura/1%2C1%2C8%2CB/frameset&FF=amillard+laura&2%2C%2C8 |website=library.gallery.ca |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=24 September 2022}}</ref> and she has written other books and articles.<ref name="OCAD " />
==Work== Millard was initially a landscape painter. In 1999, in the Burlington Art Centre's ''Imagining An[other] Canada – Reconsidering images of Nationalism in the Canadian Landscape'', curated by Carol Podedworny, Millard was said to be rethinking landscape.<ref>{{cite web |title=Imagining An[other] Canada – Reconsidering images of nationalism in the Canadian landscape| url=https://www.msvuart.ca/exhibition/imagining-another-canada-reconsidering-images-of-nationalism-in-the-canadian-landscape/ |website=www.msvuart.ca |publisher=MSUV ART |access-date=28 September 2022}}</ref> Over time, she brought together in her art the contradictory ways in which landscape could be seen, altered and represented, varying her approach for different exhibitions to try and reinvent the genre.
In 2004, she was said to have merged the arts of painting and photography to create a "highly evocative" body of work that concentrated on ice-frozen areas of the Bow River in Alberta.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Bow: living with a river |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wvURAQAAIAAJ&q=laura+millard | year=2004 |publisher=Key Porter Books, 2005, p. 25 | isbn=9781552636343 |access-date=24 September 2022}}</ref> In 2016, in a group exhibition at Toronto's InterAccess Gallery, titled ''Once Is Nothing: A Drone Art Exhibition'', she let a quadcopter fly at ankle height to record the leaves in Scarborough's Rouge Park for a video, ''Passing''.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Collins |first1=Leah |title=This drone footage will blow your mind, but not for the reasons you think |url=https://www.cbc.ca/arts/this-drone-footage-will-blow-your-mind-but-not-for-the-reasons-you-think-1.3451628 |website=www.cbc.ca |publisher=CBC |access-date=23 September 2022}}</ref> In her solo exhibition ''trace'' at the McClure Gallery in Montreal in 2020, she used a drone to make drawings of the land below, marked them with different media, then printed selected images on fabric and used them in lightboxes which enveloped the viewer so that he or she could experience the place for themselves.<ref name="mcClure " />
In 2024, Millard was part of the Arctic Circle Alumni Residency in the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard. Among Millard's creations as a result were a suite of motion lamps that combined her photographs of disappearing glaciers with lamps that rotated thanks to heat convection from their bulbs.<ref>{{cite web |title=Article |url=https://blog.cowleyabbott.ca/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=1081035782&gbraid=0AAAAADJ-DBa3OuaMXnvFTZeIi2HvuyTn_&gclid=CjwKCAjwlaTGBhANEiwAoRgXBU7tbLFIO7aDDWY-WRFtDK0aSAnOrj9olXQ9LAfNjZrARLkw3c_iQxoCLdUQAvD_BwE |website=blog.cowleyabbott.ca |publisher=Cowley Abbott Auction |access-date=17 September 2025}}</ref>
==Exhibitions== Millard began showing her work as an artist in group exhibitions in 1987 in Calgary. Since then, she has participated in many group exhibitions both nationally and internationally.<ref name="mcClure " /> In 2017, her work was included in ''Every. Now. Then: reframing nationhood'' at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.<ref>{{cite web |title=Every. Now. Then: reframing nationhood |url=https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM3775883&R=3775883 |website=www.torontopubliclibrary.ca |publisher=TPL |access-date=27 September 2022}}</ref> In 2020, her work was shown in ''The Uncanny Outdoors'' at the MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie.<ref name="macLaren " >{{cite web |title=The Uncanny Outdoors |url=https://maclarenart.com/project/the-uncanny-outdoors-virtua |website=maclarenart.com |publisher=MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie |access-date=21 September 2022}}</ref> She has had solo exhibitions at galleries across Canada and internationally including such exhibitions as ''Contrail'', at the Where Where Exhibition Space, Beijing (2011); ''Crossing'', at the Whyte Museum, Banff, Alberta (2019)<ref>{{cite web |title=Laura Millard: Crossing |url=https://canadianart.ca/?agenda=laura-millard-crossing |website=canadianart.ca |publisher=canadianart, 2019 |access-date=21 September 2022}}</ref> and in 2020, ''trace'', at the McClure Visual Arts Center, Montreal, Quebec.<ref>{{cite web |title=Laura Millard ◆ Visite commentée virtuelle Virtual Artist Talk |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8V6U7d2KiU |website=www.youtube.com |publisher=Galerie McClure, 2020 |access-date=21 September 2022}}</ref>
==Selected collections== Her work is in the public collections Alberta Foundation for the Arts;<ref>{{cite web |title=Collection |url=http://alberta.emuseum.com/search/laura%20millard |website=alberta.emuseum.com |publisher=Alberta Foundation for the Arts |access-date=24 September 2022}}</ref> the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta;<ref>{{cite web |title=Collection |url=http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/collectionsResults.aspx?AC=GET_RECORD&XC=/search/collectionsResults.aspx&BU=&TN=Objects&SN=AUTO25927&SE=1077&RN=0&MR=10&TR=0&TX=1000&ES=0&CS=0&XP=&RF=WebResults&EF=&DF=WebResultsDetails&RL=0&EL=0&DL=0&NP=255&ID=&MF=WPEngMsg.ini&MQ=&TI=0&DT=&ST=0&IR=2254&NR=0&NB=0&SV=0&BG=&FG=&QS=CollectionsSearch&OEX=ISO-8859-1&OEH=ISO-8859-1 |website=ww2.glenbow.org |publisher=Glenbow Museum, Calgary |access-date=21 September 2022}}</ref> the MacLaren Art Centre;<ref name="macLaren " /> and Museum London in London, Ontario.<ref>{{cite web |title=Collection |url=http://collection.museumlondon.ca/search/laura%2520millard |website=collection.museumlondon.ca |publisher=Museum London, Ontario |access-date=21 September 2022}}</ref>
==Awards== She is the recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.<ref>{{cite web |title=Article |url=https://www.redheadgallery.org/current-lm#:~:text=The%20recipient%20of%20numerous%20awards,Blake%20Gopnik%20'On%20Art'. |website=www.redheadgallery.org |publisher=Red Head Gallery |access-date=17 September 2025}}</ref> Millard has done artists residencies in the Arctic Circle Residency in Svalbard and the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture in Dawson City, Yukon,<ref>{{cite web |title=Artists in Residence |url=https://kiac.ca/artist-in-residence-program/past-participants/ |website=kiac.ca |publisher=The Klondike Institute of Art and Culture |access-date=22 September 2022}}</ref> and in Canada at the Banff Centre and NSCAD University. In 2011, she was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.<ref name=RCA1880 >{{cite web|title=Members since 1880 |url=http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp |publisher=Royal Canadian Academy of Arts |accessdate=2022-09-21|url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526215339/http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp |archivedate=May 26, 2011 }}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Bibliography== * {{cite book |title=The Bow: living with a river |date=2004 |publisher=Key Porter |location=Toronto |url=http://library.gallery.ca/search~S1?/amastin%2C+c/amastin+c/1%2C1%2C31%2CB/frameset&FF=amastin+catharine+m+1963&5%2C%2C31 |access-date=24 September 2022}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Millard, Laura}} Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:Artists from Calgary Category:NSCAD University alumni Category:Academic staff of OCAD University Category:Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Category:20th-century Canadian women artists Category:21st-century Canadian women artists Category:Canadian art educators Category:Canadian women art educators Category:Canadian installation artists Category:Canadian contemporary artists