Trained as a painter and writer, John Kissick attended Queen’s University at Kingston, Cornell University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Institutes for Higher Education. He taught at Penn State University’s School of Visual Arts for thirteen years, where he was a Full Professor, Head of Painting and then Head of Critical Studies. He has also taught in adjunct capacities at University of Ulster (Belfast Art College) and the University of California--Berkeley Extention, and was Dean of the Faculty of Art at the Ontario College of Art & Design from 2000 to 2003. The author of numerous catalogue essays and articles for periodicals, he is the author of Art: Context and Criticism (1992/6), was a regular reviewer for the New Art Examiner from 1992-1997 and was editor of the Penn State Journal of Contemporary Criticism from 1990-1995. His exhibition record includes numerous solo exhibitions in Canada and the United States and is in a number of important national public collections. In 2005, Kissick  was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy for the Arts. He currently represented by the Leo Kamen Gallery in Toronto, Newzones Gallery in Calgary and Galerie de Bellefeuille in Montreal. John Kissick is currently the Director of the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph, and is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Elora Festival.