Cliff Eyland was a Canadian painter, writer and curator.
Career
Raised in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Eyland studied art at Holland College, Mount Allison University, and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. While in school, he was influenced by artists Robert Morris, On Kawara and Daniel Buren. Eyland was best known for his work that transformed public spaces and his drawings and paintings done on the small 3 x 5 index card format. In 2005 his installation Untitled, consisting of over 1000 paintings, opened at the Winnipeg's Millennium Library. In 2014 he had two painting installations open at the Halifax Central Library. Library Cards is located behind the front desk and Book Shelf Paintings is on the firth floor. He also has a smaller public art commission of 600 painting titled Sculptures in Landscapes at the Meadows branch of the Edmonton Public Library. Starting as early as his student days, Eyland's work also engaged library spaces as a part of curated exhibitions. These interventions would see him hide drawings in books and card catalogues in collections at the New School’s Raymond Fogelman Social Sciences and Humanities Library in New York, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the Library and Archives in Ottawa and the Muttart Library in Calgary. During his 2012 residency and solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada he showed painting in the vitrine, published an artist book and placed 1000 file card drawings into books in the National Gallery of Canada Library.,Eyland was also a curator and writer and saw those as an extension of his artistic practice. Sine 1983, he wrote a number of pieces of art criticism for Canadian art magazines. His curatorial work included 9 years as a curator at the Technical University of Nova ScotiaSchool of Architecture and freelance work for various galleries, including the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art in Winnipeg. From 1995 to 2005, Eyland was vice-president of the board of Plug In. In 1998 he was hired as an associate professor of painting at the University of ManitobaSchool of Art and director of Gallery One One One positions he held until 2010. Eyland was represented by Gurevich Fine Art in Winnipeg. His archives are held at the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections. In 2020, his alma mater Nova Scotia College of Art and Design has set up the Cliff Eyland Memorial Scholarship for painting students and endowed by his family.
