Patrick Jenkins

1955–

Patrick Jenkins (1955– ) is a contemporary Canadian artist, animator, and documentary filmmaker living in Toronto. Jenkins specialized in paint-on-glass animation, a form of stop-motion animation. Born in Brantford, Ontario, while envisioning a path in painting and visual arts during his high school years in the early seventies, Jenkins felt a magnetic pull towards cinema. Initially studying Visual Art studies at York University in 1974, he delved into film through Super 8. Eventually attaining an MFA in Drawing and Filmmaking, Jenkins exhibited drawings, produced experimental films, and garnered recognition for his independent animated works from 1985 onward.

Jenkins’s career was at its high when he was invited by the publication house of Kids Can Press to edit and illustrate an instructional book on making flipbooks. Flipbook Animation and Other Ways to Make Cartoons Move was published in 1991. The Addison Wesley Publishing Company also printed this book in the US as Animation. Soon, Portuguese and French language editions were also released.

Jenkins’s animated films screened at global film festivals, from The Ottawa International Animation Festival and the London International Animation Festival to the Melbourne International Animation Festival. Not confined to animation, his documentaries on artists have found a platform on Bravo! Television Canada and CBC Television. The triumph of his recent film, Tara’s Dream, 2010, is evident in its dual recognition at the 2010 Toronto Urban Film Festival, securing both Second Prize and the prestigious Best Animation Prize.