Barbara Klunder: Gold Award-Winning Artist
Designs Sets And Costumes For Gold: The Play

"Humour lies at the heart of Klunder's art, which she typifies as graphically joyful, maintaining that people learn best when they're not being lectured at."
- From a review by Deirdre Hanna, Now

Toronto artist Barbara Klunder, whose distinctive urban-folk designs have won her gold and silver awards, turns her glittering talents to Gold: The Play.

Her colourful, witty costumes, sets and puppets will contribute to making Gold a priceless, unforgettable experience during its July 23 -September 1 run in Toronto's Dufferin Grove Park.

Gold is Barbara Klunder's third production for Clay and Paper Theatre. She designed the spectacular and hugely popular production Lilith Unfair, which drew large crowds nightly to Dufferin Grove Park in August 1999, and the poster for The Ballad of Garrison Creek, in 1998.

The work of Barbara Klunder can be found in collections from the corporate to the spiritual heights - of the Dalai Lama, the late Pierre Trudeau, Coca-Cola and others. It appears as paintings and hooked rugs, sweaters and ceramics, sculpture and installation art. It can also be seen as print, for which she has created original typefaces, two of them distributed by the Fontshop in Berlin.

She has had solo shows at both the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto and the Canadian Craft Museum in Vancouver. In the 1980s, at the recommendation of Vogue Magazine, New York's Saks Fifth Avenue and later Bergdorf Goodman carried her one-of-a-kind sweaters.

She created a Medicine Chest for a breast cancer show at the Royal Ontario Museum, a sculptural jacket titled St. Francis' Bird Blouse for an Edmonton exhibit of wearable works and a clay vessel for a St. Louis, MO exhibit. Besides her work for Clay and Paper Theatre, Klunder's theatrical design credits include work with Shadowland Theatre for the Caribana Parade and for her musical play Handsome and Gruesome, adapted from her cartoon strip in the zine Casual Casual. Klunder designed the play, wrote the dialogue and oversaw the musical selections.

Magazine illustrations, book and CD covers, and theatre and music posters have all sported her designs. And her vibrant artwork adds to the good times at Toronto's Bamboo Club.

Barbara Klunder's artwork has also helped raise funds or awareness for such environmental or human rights causes as Greenpeace, Earth Day (2000 poster), Temagami, Walkerton, Tools for Peace, Plant-a-Tree-in-Africa, and the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
That Barbara Klunder is so versatile and successful might be in part attributable to her parents, who were both visual artists, and she grew up with pencils and paintbrushes in her hands. (Her son, Willem, is now a successful furniture designer in Berlin.) After two years of education at the Ontario College of Art, she started working at 17 as a freelance illustrator - her first job being a full-colour illustration for the Globe and Mail. "I am very fortunate in that I get an idea and usually can render it myself," she states.

She began winning awards early, capturing a Gold award at the Toronto Art Directors Club at 23, and various Silver and merit awards since. In 1999, the National Magazine Awards gave her another Gold for a series of illustrations about the music world, for Shift. She has appeared several times in the prestigious New York publication American Illustration.

Barbara Klunder also encourages up-and-coming artists as a teacher and lecturer at the Art Gallery of Ontario and many colleges, guilds, and art and textile associations. As a member of the Contemporary Committee at Toronto's Textile Museum, she works with the curator on upcoming shows.

What does Klunder hope to achieve with her designs for Clay and Paper Theatre's new production? "I want them to be eye-catching enough to grab people's attention because the message of the play is worthwhile. If we can amaze and amuse, we've struck gold!" Make that Gold!

Visit Barbara's website