SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art is pleased to announce Daniel Barrow’s first solo show in Montreal. The exhibition Good Gets Better will showcase drawings and projections from 2007 to present. As part of this exhibition, a special performance by Daniel Barrow, entitled Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry (2008) will be presented in collaboration with the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal on March 16 at 7 p.m. at the museum.



Since 1993, Barrow has created and adapted comic book narratives to manual forms of animation by first creating, then layering, projecting and manipulating numerous drawings to tell a story. Using a combination of drawing and collage, the artist uses a wildly ranging palette from muddy browns to pastels to brights in his work. Inspired by Victorian illustration, early cinema magic lantern shows, comic books and the lectures of an eccentric art history professor, Barrow is a master storyteller who conjures a universe of richly odd histories using drawing, animation and performance.



Barrow was the winner of the prestigious 2010 Sobey Art Award. In their official statement, the five-member jury described Mr. Barrow as its “unanimous choice. Over the past 15 years [he] has created a unique, self-sustaining fictional world composed of drawing, storytelling and manual animation of the antiquated technology of the overhead projector... Wry, politically astute and strangely heartbreaking, his comic narratives address love, loss, gender and media culture.” 



Born and raised in Winnipeg, the artist recently relocated to Montreal. Barrow has exhibited widely in Canada and abroad. He has performed at The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), PS1 Contemporary Art Center (New York), The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), The International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s 2009 TBA festival, and the British Film Institute (London). In addition to the Sobey Art Award, Barrow is the 2007 winner of the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton award and the 2008 winner of the Images Festival’s Images Prize for Best Canadian Media Artwork. Barrow is represented by Jessica Bradley Art + Projects, Toronto.



SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art wishes to thank the Canada Council for the Arts, the ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine and the Conseil des arts de Montréal.