W. Mark Sutherland (1955) is a Canadian intermedia artist, poet and musician. His practice is a hybrid that pivots on the creation of work blurring the borders between poetry, visual art, music and performance art. His texts, objects, videos and installations investigate the play of signs found in conflicting principles of authority between, language, images and sound and have featured in galleries, performances, festivals and solo shows throughout the world. Sutherland's Code X (CD Rom, Coach House Books, Toronto, Canada, 2002), (Hearing) Aids videopoem (1993) and Sonotexts (CD, Electronic Music Foundation, NY, USA, 2011) are considered pioneering works of e-poetry, videopoetry, and sound poetry.
Long Bio:
W. Mark Sutherland (1955) is an intermedia artist, poet and musician based in Toronto, Canada. He studied at The Royal Conservatory of Music (1972-1975) and he has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (1982) from York University (specializing in Art History/Criticism, Film History and Theory). He was a staff writer for The Jazz Report (1987-2004), an editorial correspondent for Rampike magazine (1990-2015) and a member of the board of directors for Musicworks magazine (2000-2015).
Sutherland’s texts, poetry, visual constructions, and scores have been published in numerous journals and magazines including AND (England), BoXon (France), Magyar Muhely (Hungary), Variations (Switzerland), Offerta Speciale (Italy), Lightworks (USA), Harbour, Paragraph, Dandelion, Poetry Canada Review, Carnival, Open Letter, and The Queen Street Quarterly. Rencontrer encountering John Cage (Voixeditions, Paris, France), Doc(k)s “un notre web” (Akenaton/Doc(k)s, Ajaccio, France), Poetry Nation; The North American Anthology Of Fusion Poets (Vehicule Press, Montreal, Canada), Word Score Utterance Choreography (Writers Forum, London, England), The Last Word (Insomnia Press, Toronto, Canada), the last Vispo (Fantagraphics Press, Seattle, USA), Typewriter Art (Laurence King Press, London, England), The New Concrete (Hayward Publishing, London England) and The Art of Typewriting (Thames & Hudson, London, England) are some of the anthologies containing his work.
He has twelve artist bookworks to his credit. These works are archived in international galleries and institutions — The Museum Of Modern Art-Artists Book Archive (New York, USA), The School of The Art Institute of Chicago-Joan Flasch Artists’ Books Collection (Chicago, USA), Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, USA), The Art Gallery Of Ontario-E.P. Taylor Research Library + Archives (Toronto, Canada) and The National Gallery Of Canada-Art Metropole Collection (Ottawa, Canada).
Sutherland’s aural poetry is included on the following audio anthologies; Modern Sounds (The C.A.G.E. Record Project, Cincinnati, USA), Baobab - The New Worlds (Edizioni Elytra, Cento, Italy), Pate De Voix (Offerta Speciale, Torino, Italy), Carnivocal (Red Deer Press, Red Deer, Alberta), Homo Sonorus (National Center For Contemporary Art, Kaliningrad, Russia), Fumms bo wo taa zaa Uu (Weil a. Rhein, Teile, Germany) and La Voce Regina (3Vitre, Italy). His solo and collaborative CD’s include Notes and Songs From The Pan American Highway (The BarKing Boys Music Co.), Oral Cavity (The BarKing Boys Music Co.), Sonotexts (Electronic Music Foundation) and Cross Rhythm and White Noise with Nobuo Kubota (The BarKing Boys Music Co.). He has also performed at many international poetry festivals —
Cantextualities (Edmonton, Canada), YesbePoetry Festival (Bologna/Florence Italy), Bobeobi Festival (Berlin, Germany), 6 Festival de Polypoetry (Barcelona, Spain), Voyage to Polynesia Festival (Barcelona, Spain), Scream In High Park (Toronto, Canada), Words and Voices (Heidelberg, Germany), Polysonneries (Lyon, France), THEWORDMUSIC Festival (Reykjavik, Iceland), Voices ++ Festival (Victoria, Canada), Yuxtaposiciones Festival (Madrid, Spain), 3durch3 (Stuttgart, Germany), Language To Cover A Wall (Buffalo, USA), Institut fur Konstruktive Kunst und Konkrete Poesie Kunsthaus Rehau (Rehau, Germany) and Poesia En Voz Alta (Mexico City, Mexico).
Selected screenings of Sutherland's videopoetry include VideoPoesia (Museo Caixa Forum, Barcelona/Madrid Spain), Optica Festival de Videoarte (Gijon, Spain), Roma Poesia (Rome, Italy), Zebra Video Poetry Festival (Berlin, Germany), Festival Instant Video (Aix en Provence, France), aluCine Toronto Latin Media Festival (Toronto, Canada), Video Bardo Festival of International Video Poetry (Buenos Aries, Argentina), The Text Festival (Bury, England) Loop Videoart Festival (Barcelona, Spain), E-Poetry Conference (Kingston University, London, England), This is Not a Script (Ghent, Belgium), Poésie/Traduction/Film (Universite de Paul Valery, Montpellier, France) and WRIT LARGE – A Festival of Text (Oakland, USA).
Solo exhibitions of his ten-year retrospective entitled Scratch (1991-2001) were presented at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, Canada), The Thames Gallery (Chatham, Canada), The Peterborough Art Gallery (Peterborough, Canada) and The Koffler Gallery (Toronto, Canada). Sutherland’s participation in group exhibitions include To Hear Is To See (YYZ Gallery, Toronto, Canada), Poetische Positionen II, (Kasseler Kunstverien, Kassel, Germany), Viaggio nella parola, (Cassa di Risparmio, La Spezia, Italy), Poesia Totale (Studio Brescia, Brescia, Italy), Lotta Poetica (Fondazione Berardelli, Brescia, Italy), Metalogos (ll Gabbiano Gallery, LaSpezia, Italy, Museo Nuova Era, Bari, Italy, Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto, New Gallery, Calgary, VAC Clairington, Clairington, Canada, Forest City Gallery, London, Canada) and Cut With The Kitchen Knife…(Spatiu Intact, Cluj, Rumania).
Sutherland claims “to make poetry that is visual art, visual art that is music, and music that is poetry — all of my objects, texts, performances, videos and audio - visual installations investigate the play of signs found in conflicting principles of authority between language, sound, images and objects.”
FULL CV (pdf download)
