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Cameron Armstrong, the youngest of three children, was born in 1970 in North Bay, Ontario as Cameron Clyde Armstrong. He was raised in North Bay.

In 1989, he moved to Toronto, Ontario, where he attended the Ontario College of Art (now the Ontario College of Art and Design), from 1989 to 1993. He moved from Toronto to North Bay in 2001. That year, his work was selected to be part of Cuba, Canada: Two Nations, a traveling group exhibition organized by North Bay artist, David Carlin. They traveled to Matanaz, for the final showing of the exhibition.

Solo exhibitions of his work include: Closer Than You Appear (2005, Joan Ferneyhough Gallery, North Bay, Ontario), Inscribing Silence (2002, White Water Gallery, North Bay, Ontario) and Decanting Memory (2001, Joan Ferneyhough Gallery).

He received an Emerging Artists Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2003.

Cameron's works are in private, public and corporate collections, including the Metropolitan Toronto Convention Centre & Visitors' Association, R.M.E. Capital Corp. (North Bay) and the W. K. P. Kennedy Gallery (North Bay).

Cameron is represented by Joan Ferneyhough Gallery in North Bay.

(The biographical information featured here was written in consultation with the artist in 2006.)

Interview:

"I pretty much can't remember not drawing," says Cameron Armstrong, reflecting on his childhood. He still owns the family table that he would sit beneath, whose underside he would secretly draw on. As long as he had art supplies, he was very easily entertained, he says. In kindergarten, he made his first sale of a drawing to a classmate for fifty cents.

Growing up in North Bay, Cameron was part of the social scene at the Lion's Heart, where musicians and artists congregated. Without access to this scene, he probably wouldn't have made the decision to attend art school, Cameron says. Attending the Ontario College of Art (now the Ontario College of Art and Design) was exciting, Cameron says, because it exposed him to other artists in his age group, and gave him "a sense of community in the art world." It also gave him the opportunity to become "obsessed with theory".

Cameron's creative process is influenced by the writings of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and Canadian-born abstract painter, Agnes Martin. "I tend to use language nomadically," he explains, allowing the text to lead to a visual image. His sketchbooks include about half text and half drawings, he says. "There's a lot of text I go through to get to image." While text plays an important role, he doesn't see the final works as depending on narrative.

His works tend to have multiple components layered on a canvas, and the "pseudo abstract" portions emerging from the sides tend to be the starting point, he says. They tend to be derivations from drawings in his sketchbooks or the outcome of looking for relationships among abstract forms.

Currently, he is exploring imagery from children's literature in a "loose narrative". This series will keep him busy for the next few years, he says.

By Heather Saunders, based on a phone interview in January, 2007.)

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Cameron Armstrong
2006

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Cameron Armstrong, Inscribing Silence (installation view)
2002
White Water Gallery, North Bay, Ontario, Canada

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Cameron Armstrong, Submission material for exhibition at White Water Gallery
2002