Janieta Eyre
(1966–)
Janieta Eyre
1966–
Janieta Eyre (1966– ) is a British-born photographer based in Toronto.
Eyre received her B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1988 and continued on to study Magazine Journalism at Ryerson Polytechnic University (now Ryerson University). Eyre studied photography part-time at the Ontario College of Art and Design (now Ontario College of Art and Design University), before taking up photography professionally in 1995. Eyre began her creative career as a writer, noting that she would have remained in the industry if she stayed in Britain. She cites the dominant image-based film and television culture in North America as having impacted her decision to move towards photography.
Eyre is known for her distinctive self-portraits in which she presents herself as a set of twins, engaging with the possibility of amorphous identities and fictional doubles, straddling the line between photography and performance. Her use of twins as self-portraiture draws from Eyre’s inspiration of having past lives, thereby two images of self. She employs fantastic imaginative settings into her works, integrating props and costumes as a way to disrupt the fixity of image and identity. Eyre often incorporates art historical and literary references into her photographs. Her photographs are set up meticulously, with Eyre elaborately staging furnishings in her apartment. Eyre draws inspiration from what is unseen, and images from her dreams, which has resulted in her works taking influence from Surrealism. Eyre has experimented in film, her first being the 13-minute short “Now We Understand Each Other,” inspired by the grotesquely configured dolls of Hans Bellmer.
Eyre’s first solo exhibition was held at the Garnet Press Gallery, Toronto in 1995. The exhibition was inspired by the paintings of the French-Polish modern artist, Balthus, as well as Neil Gaiman’s novel, Coraline (2002). Eyre has gone on to exhibit in numerous galleries internationally, with credits including Lady Lazarus (1999) at the Christinerose Gallery, New York, In The Scream of Things (2008), at the Begona Malone Gallery, Madrid, and The Mute Book (2012), at the Galerie Samuel Lallouz, Montréal.
Eyre’s work can be found in numerous public collections including the Musée d’art contemporain, Montréal, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, the National Gallery of Art, Reykjavík, Iceland, Ciudad de Cultura, Fundacion Municipal, Salamanca, Spain, and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, among others.
In 1997, Eyre received the Duke and Duchess of York Award for Photography, as well as the Chalmers Award in 2014.