Jay Isaac
Jay Isaac (born 1975) is a Canadian artist based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is known primarily for his painting, but he has produced numerous projects within the social sphere. He was founder, editor, publisher, and designer of Hunter and Cook magazine (2009-2011). He founded and ran the @nationalgalleryofcanada Instagram account (2014-2016). He founded and co-runs Peter Estey Fine Art, an auction house dedicated to presenting idiosyncratic historical Canadian art (2018-present). Isaac is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto. Early life and education. Isaac was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. He  attended Cardiff School of Art and Design in Wales in 1996 and graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1997. Career. In 2020 Isaac was awarded a Chalmers Fellowship through the Ontario Arts Council to research historic mural production in former Soviet Ukraine and Georgia and New Deal era murals from the United States. This research developed into a series of large scale paintings titled Mural Studies, which were exhibited at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto in 2021. In 2018 the Toronto publisher Swimmers Group published "Like a Baby I Was Born Again", a book of  Isaac’s drawings. The drawings were surreal, social and political commentary cartoons. Two of the drawings were exhibited at The Brucke Museum in Berlin. His series "Second Eye", which was exhibited at Monte Clark Gallery, Toronto in 2012, was fabricated using a combination of unsold furniture items from a small antique shop he ran in Toronto and unresolved works in his studio. The amalgamation of the two “failed” components produced idiosyncratic sculptural works that writer Ben Portis described as “the nerviest gallery encounter of the year”. Between 2005-2010 Isaac collaborated with musician Lorenz Peter to create Bay of Creatures , an experimental music project. A compilation was released by Toronto label Paper+Sound in 2017.