Evan Penny
Evan Penny
1953 -
Evan Penny is well known internationally and in Canada for his hyperreal sculptural portraits and figures, both faithfully rendered to life and distorted, stretched or blurred. Working with silicone, pigment, hair, fabric, resin and aluminum, he has garnered international acclaim for his work that explores the effects of traditional and digital photography on sculptural realism, and how we might experience those effects in time and space.
Penny was born in 1953 in what was then Zimbabwe but is now South Africa. His father moved the family to northern Alberta in 1964. Penny’s love for sculpting became evident on the first day of sculpture class at the Alberta College of Art and Design. He graduated in 1975 with honours, and two years later returned to pursue his post-graduate studies before relocating to live and work in Toronto. Going against the conceptualist grain of the 1980s, he became known in Canada for his smaller than life-sized hyperrealist models done in resin. In the early 1990s he concurrently worked in the film industry as a special effects creator on over 25 films, including Natural Born Killers, Nixon and JFK.
Penny’s current conceptual trajectory began in 1998, which takes as its starting point the implicit artifice inherent in any representation of the “real.” Penny tries to situate his sculpture in between the way we perceive each other in real time and space, and the way we perceive ourselves and each other in an image. His L. Faux project, for example, from 2005 is a sculpture of a woman’s head, cropped at the shoulders like a passport photograph, confronting the viewer as both image and object. Another sculpture entitled Murray, maintains its proportions when viewed head-on, however when viewed obliquely, it compresses and distorts, going from full volume to flatness.
In 2007 Penny began working with 3-D scanning processes in which he could digitally alter the information before printing with foam to create the sculptural base. More recently, Penny created a series in which he imagines himself in the future as well as the past, a project which visually illustrates the crisis of confidence in imagery today. Rather than assert identity, his works hope to question it; in the process complicating the viewer’s relationships to their body and others.
Alongside numerous domestic and international solo shows, a 12-year survey of his work Re Figured toured museums in Germany, Austria and Italy before concluding at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2012. His work was also included in RESHAPED REALITY: 50 Years of Hyperrealistic Sculpture which showed at museums in Australia, The Netherlands, Mexico, Spain and Denmark. In 2017 an exhibition entitled Evan Penny: Ask Your Body was held at the Chiesa di San Samuele as part of the 57th Venice Biennale.
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Back of Danny #3 by Evan Penny sold for $28,125
Evan Penny
Back of Danny #3
24 1/2 x 30 x 5 in, 62.2 x 76.2 x 12.7 cm
silicone, hair, pigment and aluminum sculpture
Estimate: $20,000 - $30,000 CDN
Sold for: $28,125 CDN (premium included)
Post-War & Contemporary Art on Wednesday, December 02, 2020
Janet by Evan Penny sold for $11,500
Evan Penny
Janet
26 1/2 x 12 x 8 in, 67.3 x 30.5 x 20.3 cm
epoxy resin
Estimate: $10,000 - $12,000 CDN
Sold for: $11,500 CDN (premium included)
Fine Canadian Art Spring 2004 on Thursday, May 27, 2004
Study #6 for Mask by Evan Penny sold for $5,310
Evan Penny
Study #6 for Mask
7 x 6 1/4 x 5 1/2 in, 17.8 x 15.9 x 14 cm
bronze sculpture
Estimate: $5,000 - $6,000 CDN
Sold for: $5,310 CDN (premium included)
September 2015 - 3rd Session on Thursday, September 24, 2015
Mask No. 5 by Evan Penny sold for $5,265
Evan Penny
Mask No. 5
11 x 6 1/8 x 3 in, 27.9 x 15.6 x 7.6 cm
bronze
Estimate: $5,000 - $7,000 CDN
Sold for: $5,265 CDN (premium included)
September 2011 - 2nd Session on Thursday, September 29, 2011
Study No. 4 for Mask by Evan Penny sold for $4,130
Evan Penny
Study No. 4 for Mask
9 x 7 x 4 in, 22.9 x 17.8 x 10.2 cm
bronze sculpture
Estimate: $5,000 - $6,000 CDN
Sold for: $4,130 CDN (premium included)
September 2016 - 5th Session on Thursday, September 29, 2016
Head (Monad) by Evan Penny sold for $1,000
Evan Penny
Head (Monad)
10 1/4 x 7 x 8 3/4 in, 26 x 17.8 x 22.2 cm
1990
cement sculpture
Estimate: $1,000 - $2,000 CDN
Sold for: $1,000 CDN (premium included)
Figure | Fauna | Flora on Thursday, June 29, 2023