Over the past 20 years, Grossmann has continued to be a significant force in the Canadian art world.
In June 2006, she was included in a list of 100 artists who have most influenced students at eleven leading British art schools, including the Royal Academy, Slade and Royal College of Art.
Grossmann
has devoted much of her career to examining themes of displacement
and social margins through the use of collaged and transferred
discarded materials. In an early series titled Affaires
d'Enfants (1987), she painted on the insides of suitcases
abandoned by an agency in Paris that once sponsored summer
camp holidays for orphans. In 1991, she created (Sign)ifying
the END of the (Second) 2nd World War using photographs
of unknown European children found in second-hand shops.Grossmann based her 1994 exhibition Scapegoats on mug shots taken of prisoners in the British Columbia Penitentiary during the 1940s. In a strange world hovering between fantasy and reality, she forced viewers to face the human side of criminals. Her 1999 exhibition, My Vocation, presented the human figure graphically sketched and enlarged. The images emerged through ephemeral layers of letters, photographs, addresses, envelopes, postage and cancellation marks.
In her recent work, Grossmann emphasizes coming-of-age themes. Alpha Girls (2004), a forceful narrative series, resonated with the emotional world of young teen girls. Paper Dolls continued the themes of social status, fashion and identity among the “paper dolls” of 2006. Also in 2006, she joined forces once more with Douglas Coupland, Graham Gillmore, Attila Richard Lukacs and Derek Root to create a massive sculptural installation entitled Vancouver School.
The Diane Farris Gallery has represented Angela Grossmann in twelve solo shows and numerous group exhibits. After earning an MFA at Concordia University and teaching at Ottawa University, Grossmann returned to Vancouver in 1996 to paint and to teach at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited widely across Canada, the United States and Europe.
