SHIRLEY MADILL is a graduate from the University of Manitoba whose post-graduate studies focused on International and Cultural History as well as Art History. She was Curator of Contemporary Art and Photography at the Winnipeg Art Gallery from 1979 until 1999 when she left to take position of Chief Curator/Director of Programming at the Art Gallery of Hamilton and later Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer. In 2006 she left to take the position of CEO at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. After 2 years she returned to Ontario as Director of the Rodman Hall Art Centre/Brock University and in May 2011 accepted the position of Executive Director at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.
Shirley is past President of the Board of Directors of the International Council of Museums Canada, and past President of the Board of the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. Madill was past President of the Board of Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers and a Canadian member of the International Association of Contemporary Art Curators. She has traveled extensively throughout the world and curated many exhibitions in contemporary art on an international level.
In 1993 Madill spent a year’s residency in Valenciennes, France at the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Superieure. In 2009 she completed the Getty Institute Museum Leadership course in Los Angeles. She has received the Ontario Association of Architects Certificate of Recognition for the Advocacy for Architecture for the Future Cities international exhibition project in Hamilton and was the 2004 Canadian Commissioner for the Sao Paulo Bienal featuring the work of David Rokeby. She won the Ontario Association of Art Galleries Award in 2007 for the exhibition project Sublime Embrace: experiencing consciousness in contemporary art and recently she was awarded the OAAG 2010 Award for best Art Publication – David Hoffos: Scenes from the House Dream, produced in conjunction with the same exhibition that toured to the National Gallery of Canada.
Her publication record is extensive and she has also served on numerous Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council juries and presented papers on photography, performance art, women’s art issues, and First Nations art across Canada and the United States. She has also taught courses in 20th Century Canadian and European Art at the University of Winnipeg, the University of Manitoba and Brock University, the History of Photography at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Museum Management and Cultural Resource Management at the University of Victoria and Curatorial Practice at Brock University.