The Art of Tim Jocelyn

Tim Jocelyn (1952-1986) was a brilliant, articulate, and innovative artist who rose to prominence in the tumultuous Queen Street art scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. His fascination and facility with fabric led him first to the manufacture of unique and beautiful fashion accessories, but he branched out into other areas, making brilliant and provocative banners, furniture coverings, and screens. Jocelyn turned increasingly away from fashion to enter wholeheartedly the avant-garde art world.

Tim Jocelyn’s partner and fellow artist, Andy Fabo, was a founding member of the influential ChromaZone group. It was as an associate of the group that Jocelyn became curator of the Chromaliving show in 1984. Toronto’s NOW magazine rated Chromaliving as the single most important art show of the last 20 years: “A landmark manifesto show,” according to NOW, “Chromaliving brought over 100 artists working in every medium into one recently closed high-end department store to celebrate the end of the death of painting.” It was a fabulous, formative, anarchic event, featuring faux-fashion shows, seminal installations, and funny, subversive performances.

Tim Jocelyn’s final, signal accomplishment was a remarkable installation constructed for Vancouver’s world’s fair, Expo ’86. The New Dimensions Astrolabe was massive, graceful, and dense with meaning. It pointed to a future body of work that was not to be realized. Tim Jocelyn died of AIDS soon after.

This oversized book contains perceptive essays, candid photographs of the artist, his associates, and the shows they participated in, and brilliant reproductions of Tim Jocelyn’s work. Together they convey a vivid sense both of the artist and an extraordinary period in Canadian art.