Bio

Chris Myhr is a media artist based in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada). Myhr’s work is ecologically-motivated and focuses on materiality and the interplay between humans, non-humans and the environment. Myhr’s studio practice seeks intersections between art, science, and ecology. For over a decade he has developed an extensive body of work that investigates our complex interrelationships with water. He is particularly interested in the paradoxical tension between water as life, vitality and industry, as well as a source of immense and unpredictable destructive power. Projects have explored the floodplains of post-Touhoku Earthquake Tokyo; South Korea’s Nakdong and Han rivers; shipwreck sites off the coast of Nova Scotia; as well as hydrocarbon, mercury and plastic contamination in the Athabasca River (Alberta), the Great Lakes (Ontario), and the Canadian Arctic. He is currently working with researchers in the Aquatic Contaminants Division at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (Burlington) on a series of ecologically-motivated projects titled “Ab-Solutes” and “Alluvium”. The projects examine the ways in which invasive activities such as resource extraction and hydroelectric dam construction not only impact the immediate terrestrial environment on which they occur, but also other interconnected Earth systems - ruminating on the sheer unknowability of this complex feedback loop between human activity and the environment. Chris Myhr’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and his portfolio was awarded the Prefix Prize in Contemporary Art in 2021. Media Links: “To see the world in a grain of sand” - Exhibition Catalogue: https://www.factorymediacentre.ca/wp-content/uploads/Toseetheworld-PublicationWeb-FMC.pdf “Artist Chris Myhr Makes a Salient Point” - Hamilton City Magazine, Stephanie Vegh: https://hamiltoncitymagazine.ca/artist-chris-myhr-makes-a-salient-point/ “How Images of the 2011 Tsunami in Japan Led Me to Examine Connections with Water in Photography, Sound and Sculpture” - The Conversation Canada, Chris Myhr: https://theconversation.com/how-images-of-the-2011-tsunami-in-japan-led-me-to-examine-connections-with-water-in-photography-sound-and-sculpture-200723 “Salients” Artist Talk - M(M)A, Chris Myhr: https://museum.mcmaster.ca/exhibition/chris-myhr-salients/ PhotoED Magazine “Water” - Fall 2023: https://www.photoed.ca/product-page/fall-2023-water?srsltid=AfmBOorBkLFo-QR7E-JahuXy3Opw5blBJYLZOaCxe7bLq7BqO-AZAHN1 LOM+you Project: https://plusyou.lom.audio/projects/chris-myhr “Light and Matter: 2022 South Korea Sculpture Biennale” - Spiel Contemporary Art and Culture: https://artspiel.org/light-and-matter2022-south-korea-sculpture-biennale/ “P.S. 1.3 - Chris Myhr” - Prefix Prize, Scott McLeod: https://www.prefix.ca/publications/ “The Living River Project: Art, Water and Possible Worlds” Catalogue, Patrick Mahon and Stuart Reid: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://artwindsoressex.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/the-living-river-project.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjQ2JGLv5OTAxXLk4kEHSWCAowQFnoECBkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw28eRJ9ABXKajYBCPqmVn73 “Light and Matter: 2022 South Korea Sculpture Biennale” - Spiel Contemporary Art and Culture: https://artspiel.org/light-and-matter2022-south-korea-sculpture-biennale/ “P.S. 1.3 - Chris Myhr” - Prefix Prize, Scott McLeod: https://www.prefix.ca/publications/ “The Living River Project: Art, Water and Possible Worlds” Catalogue, Patrick Mahon and Stuart Reid: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://artwindsoressex.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/the-living-river-project.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjQ2JGLv5OTAxXLk4kEHSWCAowQFnoECBkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw28eRJ9ABXKajYBCPqmVn73