BIO

edward d bacal makes and does things:

his professional work includes digital media and communications, graphic design, and education.

his academic work is in 20/21st century art & visual culture

scroll
2012 - 2018

phd

2004

oxford

1988

delivery by dr. fredrick engle (sic) at mt. sinai hospital

2011 - 2012

ma

2011

dance of the demented dogs

2000

boardzone

2015-2019

conferences

2006-2011

ba

2019-2021

lost years

2018

audiobooks

2023-2024

renovation

2018

transitions

2004

art

2010-2011

undergrad fellowship at the jackman humanities institute

RESUME

edward d bacal is a PhD-educated professional who combines creativity with critical thinking. His skillset spans writing, visual design, content strategy, and FE web development, offering a holistic approach to digital / print media and e-learning.

WRITING

edward d bacal writes mostly on modern & contemporary art / visual culture from north america, latin america, and europe. he is particularly interested in abstract and conceptual art since the 1960s, with emphasis on work that explores the political implications of formal innovations.

Bodies Withdrawn: The Ethics of Abstraction in Contemporary Post-Minimal Art

PhD Thesis (2018)

Review: Toronto Biennial of Art: The Shoreline Dilemma

ASAPJournal.com (December 17, 2019)

Review: Muscled Rose at Scrap Metal Gallery

CanadianArt.ca (August 14, 2019)

pervasive death: teresa margolles and the space of the corpse

human remains and violence 4/1 (2018)

The Concrete and the Abstract: On Doris Salcedo, Teresa Margolles and Santiago Sierra’s Tenuous Bodies

Parallax 76 (2016)

Up, Down, Left, Right: Some Thoughts on the Inverse, Reverse, and Double

FrameWork 4-16 (2015)

Sharon Lockhart and Steve McQueen: Inside the Frame of Structural Film

CineAction (2014)

Capitalism and Contemporaneity: On Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave

Kapsula (2014)

DESIGN

edward d bacal is a designer that specializes in digital media, including UI/UX design, graphics (still and animated), illustration, video editing, and front-end web development. He also draws with pen and paper
[client work available by request]

  • WEB PROJECTS

  • screenshot of Responsive Records page
    NAAAANA (2022)

    A temporary blog for art criticism I designed and coded as a project for a digital communications course (2022).

    screenshot of Responsive Records page
    Responsive Records (2020)

    This site is an design project in which I recreate some of my favourite album covers in the context of a responsive web browser. I experiment with the possibilities and limitations that come with reinterpreting static, fixed-frame images as dynamic, interactive layouts, including animations and functionality via JavaScript.

    screenshot of Responsive Records page
    Grids: A Short Introduction (2020)

    Grids is a "web essay" on the role of the grid in the history of art and visual culture. This project marries my background as an art historian with my work in web design. It demonstrates both a practical exploration of CSS grid as a design tool and an experiment in creative web-publishing, with an emphasis on creating more engaging user experiences in educational content.

    screenshot of Osprey page
    Osprey: Online Edition

    This page hosts the digital version of an illustrated kids book I made for my niece. While the book also exists in a conventional form, the online edition is formatted to engage users through interactive functions, a centralized layout, and animations. Because the book doesn't follow a linear structure, the site invites users to click on different sections in any order.

    screenshot of CE Art Trace page
    CE Art Trace

    This React app displays items from the Harvard Art Museums' collection of over 230,000 items. When users select a medium, the app calls the institution's API and returns a randomly selected object from that classification, displaying an image, title, name, and date.

    screenshot of CE Art Trace page
    Buds for Suds

    This interactive app serves as a beer companion app that draws on a REST api to pair craft beer selections with a complimentary food choice. Users can submit a food-related term and receive a list of appropriate results, displaying the name, label, and description of each drink (apropriately, I don't even drink beer).

  • GRAPHIC DESIGN (volunteer projects only)

  • bikechain 2021 annual report Poster for Aesthetic Spatialities: Space, Place, & Spacing Panel Poster for Aesthetics as Politics: Art, Society, Culture Panel Poster for Harriet Sonne de Torrens Lecture Poster for Margaret English Lecture Poster for Sara Angel Lecture
  • DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

  • Illustration of a french bulldog illustration of a lucky-cat style statue with a french bulldog head Illustration of a french bulldog Page from Suds and His Buds featuring an illustration of a Bulldog with an eyepatch Illustration of a Bulldog wearing eyeglasses Illustration of a monstera leaf Illustration of a playground truck illustration of a minivan illustration of the name Rowan, on top of rowantree leaves illustration of a dog illustration of a commercial tower illustration of a comically elongated basset-hound
  • INK ILLUSTRATION

  • portrait of a man's face close up drawing of a woman holding a flower abstract line drawing drawing of a french bulldog with decorative background semi-abstract drawing of two pugs drawing of a french bulldog abstract line-drawing drawing of a french bulldog holding a rose drawing of a man's face