Tim Whiten (born August 13, 1941) is an American-born Canadian artist who works in the areas of sculpture, drawing,

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

, and multi-media installations, using a wide range of materials. He has also worked as an educator. Whiten, one of Canada's most important contemporary artists, engages with themes of ritual, myth, and alchemy in his work, exploring the transformations inherent in the human experience.

Biography

Tim Whiten was born in

Inkster, Michigan Inkster is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. A western suburb of Detroit, Inkster is located about southwest of downtown Detroit. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 26,088. History The area was origina ...

, on August 13, 1941. He graduated with a B.S. from

Central Michigan University Central Michigan University (CMU) is a Public university, public research university in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, United States. It was established in 1892 as a private normal school and became a state institution in 1895. CMU is one of the eigh ...

in 1964, and a M.F.A. from the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...

in 1966. During his undergraduate years in CMU's School of Applied Arts and Sciences, he had sought to become a

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

studying with Dr. Charles P. Poole ia personal correspondence between Dr. Poole's son and Whitenand Dr. Oscar Oppenheimer. While in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts / Faculty of Graduate Studies at the UofO, he studied with noted Czech sculptor Jan Zach. In 1968, after completing military service as a commissioned Officer in the U.S. Army, Whiten was successful in his application for a teaching position at York University in Toronto and was appointed to the Faculty of Arts in the Division of the Humanities. In 1970, he became one of the pioneer members of the newly formed Faculty of Fine Arts, having been appointed to the new faculty in the Department of Visual Arts with a cross-appointment to the Faculty of Arts. He served as Chair of the Department of Visual Arts between 1984 and 1986. In 2007, with 39 years of teaching at York University, long after having achieved the rank of Full Professor, he retired from full time teaching and currently holds the status of Professor Emeritus. Whiten's students include many accomplished artists, including Sandra Brewster, Michael Chambers, June Clark, Shabnam K.Ghazi, Francis LeBouthillier, and Larry Towell. Whiten does not consider himself an artist but an "image maker who also creates cultural objects" and to this end, has studied Zen Buddhism and the Kabbala. His choice of materials comes from everyday experiences and many of his objects are either tools or toys. These objects, representing work and play, and which can include a broom, shovel, pickaxe, rolling pin, rocking horse, tricycle, and sled, are meant to take the viewer to another place. He considers the transcendental a key to his work. Whiten has used the human skull in his art since the 1970s. Rather than the skull representing

memento mori (Latin for "remember (that you have) to die")

, Whiten feels that in his work, it is "concerned with the potential in life and a reverence for those who proceed us." The focus of Whiten's artistic output is the "human condition and the interconnectivity of the body, the spirit and the earth." Whiten's work emphasizes the transformative potential of the human experience, exploring ancient forms of consciousness, myth, and ritual. His work is represented by the Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto. In 2025, the Art Canada Institute published the monograp
Tim Whiten: Life & Work
by Carolyn Bell Farrell. Whiten lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Selected solo exhibitions

Tim Whiten's work has often been shown in solo exhibitions at the Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto (from 1986 to 2019), the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound (2018), the Meridian Gallery, San Francisco (2010, 2004, 2001), the

Art Gallery of Hamilton The Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH) is an art museum located in Hamilton, Ontario, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The museum occupies a building on King Street (Hamilton, Ontario), King Street West in downtown Hamilton, designed by Trevor P. Garwood-Jon ...

(2010), the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Waterloo (2006), the Liane and Danny Taran Gallery, Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, Montreal (1998), and the

Koffler Gallery Koffler Arts is a broad-based cultural institution established in 1977 by Murray Koffler, Murray and Marvelle Koffler and based at Artscape Youngplace in the West Queen West area of downtown Toronto, Ontario. History Koffler Arts was established i ...

, Toronto (1997), among others. ''Tim Whiten: Tools of Conveyance'', curated by Sandra Q. Firmin in 2021 for the Colorado University Art Museum in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city in Boulder County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the most ...

, was organized around themes and processes that emerged in Whiten's work from the late 1960s to the present. In 2022, four exhibitions featuring the work of Whiten as part of a multi-venue collaborative project titled ''Elemental: Ethereal'' between the

McMaster Museum of Art The McMaster Museum of Art (MMA) is a non-profit public art gallery at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The museum is located in the centre of the campus, attached to Mills Memorial Library and close to the McMaster University Student Cen ...

Robert McLaughlin Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...

, Art Gallery of Peterborough, and the Art Gallery at York University celebrated his work regarding one of the four classical elements: air, water, fire and earth.

Ritual installations

In 1976, Whiten acted as a collaborator and participant in ''Lectures on the Weather'', written and directed by

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

for the

United States Bicentennial The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to historical events leading up to the creation of the United States as an independent republic. It was a central event in the memo ...

in 1976 and shown at the

Albright-Knox Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum located adjacent to Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York, United States. The museum shows modern art and contemporary art. It is directly opposite Buff ...

in Buffalo and The Music Gallery, Toronto. He has done many site-specific works for galleries or art parks in New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, Sackville, and elsewhere.

Selected group exhibitions

Whiten's work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including exhibitions held at the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

;

Art Gallery of Windsor Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto;, the

Agnes Etherington Art Centre The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is located in Kingston, Ontario, on the campus of Queen's University. The gallery has received a number of awards for its exhibitions from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Association of Art Galleries ...

, Kingston; The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa;

University of Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public university, public research university in Buffalo, New York, Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. ...

Art Galleries, Buffalo; Art Museum,

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

; Stewart Hall Art Gallery, Pont-Claire, Quebec; the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

, Toronto; the

MacKenzie Art Gallery The MacKenzie Art Gallery (MAG; ) is an art museum located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The museum occupies the multipurpose T. C. Douglas Building, situated at the edge of the Wascana Centre. The building holds eight galleries totaling to of ...

, Regina;

Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia, Canada, with three campuses in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, a fourth in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia, Bible Hill, and a second medical school campus ...

, Halifax; Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery,

Concordia University Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...

, Montreal; Art Gallery of Peterborough; the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound; the

Textile Museum of Canada The Textile Museum of Canada, located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a museum dedicated to the collection, exhibition, and documentation of textiles. History The Textile Museum of Canada was founded as the Canadian Museum of Carpets and Textiles ...

, Toronto, the Tree Museum, Bracebridge, Ontario; and the

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an art museum and exhibition space located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple name chang ...

Public collections

Whiten's work has been collected in depth by the

, Ontario, the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound, and the Art Museum,

. His work can also be found in the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

, Ottawa, the

, Toronto, the

, Ontario,

, Kingston, the

, Oshawa, the

, Regina, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto, as well as by the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco (both the

de Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California, named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H. de Young. Located on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of the ci ...

and the Legion of Honor, Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts). The extensive range of collections holding his work can be found in a list in his biography in ''A Dictionary of Canadian Artists'', volume 9 (online only), by Anne Newlands and Judith Parker, National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada.

Commissions

In 1966, Whiten created a monumental sculpture (45 foot) erected in Jasper State Recreation Site, Oregon.

Artist residencies

In 1974, Whiten participated in a residency at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

, College Park, PA, and was made a Fellow of the Arts & Humanistic Studies program. In 1977, he created ''Morada'', a site-specific installation with ritual at Artpark in Lewiston, NY. Between 2001 and 2002, Whiten participated in the Sacatar Residency Fellowship in Itaparica, Bahia, Brazil.

Awards and memberships

In 1989, Tim Whiten received the Distinguished Leadership Award, for Extraordinary Service to the Arts, from the American Biographical Institute. He was given the 1999/2000 Faculty of Fine Arts Dean's Teaching Award,

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

, Toronto. In 2008, Whiten was selected as a finalist for the Premier's Award for Excellence in the Arts, given by the

Government of Ontario The Government of Ontario () is the body responsible for the administration of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. The term ''Government of Ontario'' refers specifically to the executive—political Minister ...

. He is a member of the

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria on 16 ...

. In 2022, Whiten won the Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO. In 2023, he was awarded the

Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually, each with a prize amount of $25,000. Created in 2000 by then Governor General ...

for Artistic Achievement.