Noel Harding is an international artist whose work can be found in numerous collections, including: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Le Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels; and the Hara Museum, Tokyo. Harding's work has been featured in more than 70 solo shows and it has been included in over 100 group exhibitions. In 1982, he was the youngest artist ever to be honoured by a major retrospective of his work at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Harding's "Anti-Heroes" exhibition (February 95) represented the first major Canadian solo exhibit to be organized within Russia. The location of the Central House of Artists is regarded as the preeminent contemporary exhibition centre in Russia. Prior to being mounted in Moscow, "Anti-Heroes" exhibited at the Mucsarnok Museum, Palace of Exhibitions, Budapest, Hungary, as part of the Budapest Spring Festivals and also at the National Gallery of Slovakia, Bratislava, Slovakia.

Harding's "The Potato Eaters" (1990), a three-part monumental sculpture featuring living trees, was selected to represent Canada in an international competition for monumental sculpture as part of the Cultural Olympiad at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1994, Harding initiated discussions with a plastics company executive about using plastics as a medium in art. This led to discussions with the Environment and Plastics Institute of Canada (EPIC), now part of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA). Harding was selected as the artist responsible for testing the idea of developing large scale plastics sculptures to be placed in public locations in metropolitan areas across Canada. Positive plastics industry support led to the Plastics + Art initiative, of which the "Artist in Residence" program is a prime component. It was designed to align the plastics industry with the Canadian arts community starting with projects by five artists in five cities across the country.

Harding was selected to pilot the program as Artist-in-Residence for the Toronto project. As such, he proposed the concept for "the Elevated Wetlands", that brings together plastics, art and nature. This proposal was accepted by CPIA in July 1995. support for the research and development phase of the project was raised among corporate and university sponsors. A prototype was built and field tested in the summer of 1996. After extensive research, production began a year later in Taylor Creek Park and was completed in the fall of 1998. The official inauguration was held October 1, 1998.
For further information and related activities surrounding "the Elevated Wetlands", please visit www.elevatedwetlands.com

Artist Code: 041