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Your CartEYE BUY ART is a carefully curated online art gallery that represents an exciting new generation of emerging photographers from Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. The photographers whose work you see here are on the cusp of significant growth in their career and have been deemed “the ones to watch out for” by a high profile jury of professionals in the field of art and photography.
Our idea is simple: make art affordable so more people can own it. EYE BUY ART offers limited edition photographs at prices that won’t burn a hole in your pocket. We will release two new images every two weeks, direct to your inbox! Make sure to sign up for our newsletter if you haven’t already, so you can get first crack at the editions before they go public.
EYE BUY ART offer work by photographers who have won Flash Forward, an annual competition that showcases the future of photography and is considered to be one of the most important emerging art incubators in the world. In October 2010 the program was transformed into the Flash Forward Festival, a 5 day, bi-annual event that launched in Canada and will tour to the US and the UK.
The Flash Forward Emerging Artist Program once again does what its name implies: it freezes a brief moment in time, preserving it for closer inspection and demonstrating the promise of what is to come in the international photography community. Boston Globe, 2008.
We think art is for everyone and we aim to make buying art easy, friendly, and affordable. Our name reflects our navigation – look, buy, and learn about art – and we hope to inspire new and existing collectors to buy art from these enthusiastic young artists at a pivotal time in their career.
To read more about what we do please explore our FAQs and the other information we have made available to you throughout the site!
Who We Are
Emily McInnes
Founder and Director
EYE BUY ART Inc.
Emily McInnes is the Founder and Director of EYE BUY ART, the Co-Director of Flash Forward Festival and a proud member of the Small Change Fund board. Emily’s passion is being an advocate for social change and challenging conventional ways of seeing. Growing up in a family with deep charitable roots in Canada, she is steeped in the traditions of community engagement and social philanthropy and has applied this philosophy to the creative and cultural sector.
In 2004 she became the Director of Creative Development of a grassroots photography festival with an operating budget of $200,000. In 4 years she grew the budget to over $2.5 million and transformed the organization into a high profile, internationally recognized institution that put Canadian artists on the map. Emily has curated numerous large-scale public art projects with the mission of bringing art onto the streets where millions of people gain access to the work outside of the traditional museum context. Some of these installations include Rodney Graham’s upside down trees wrapped around the pillars underneath a major urban expressway, projected images by Magnum Photographers on the façade of a landmark hotel and an installation of 20 grand-format aerial photographs along the moving sidewalk of an airport. Emily founded EYE BUY ART in 2009 in order to build democracy into the act of buying art.
Aviva Phillips
Project Administrator
EYE BUY ART
Aviva thrives on human interaction and is a natural at developing efficient communication streams. At EYE BUY ART, Aviva is the mastermind behind the curtains in the Wizard of Oz. She is the connection between the gallery and the artists, corresponding across continents, preparing materials, and lining up the release of each image. She is instrumental in the coordination and execution of our marketing campaigns and promotional strategies, both online and in print – and if that isn’t enough – she is also completing a degree in Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Before joining EYE BUY ART, Aviva worked at Rivet Global Advertising Agency and Bell Canada. Now we’re lucky enough to have her.
MaryAnn Camilleri
Founder and Executive Director, The Magenta Foundation
Co-Director, Flash Forward Festival
Returning to Toronto in 2004, MaryAnn Camilleri developed the ideas that resulted in her first independent projects, Flash Forward 05, an international emerging photographers competition; and Carte Blanche Vol.1: Photography, a survey of the state of contemporary Canadian photography. With these bold projects, The Magenta Foundation was born. Through The Magenta Foundation, MaryAnn Camilleri creates publications and exhibitions that are circulated in Canada and abroad. In cultivating alliances with like-minded individuals and organizations, MaryAnn has developed a network that enables her to bring international contemporary art to Canadian audiences and Canadian-made contemporary art to international audiences.
The Magenta Foundation has expanded into an online magazine called Magenta Magazine, a web- based TV channel called Magenta Television and now will open up Toronto’s Liberty Village to hold it’s latest endeavor the Flash Forward Festival.
Kelsey Blackwell
Studio : Blackwell
Creative Direction for EYE BUY ART Inc.
Kelsey has worked as a designer and creative head at leading multidisciplinary studios, including Pentagram in London, and Bruce Mau Design in Toronto before setting up Studio: Blackwell in 2006. Her work has taken the form of design for communication, organizational systems, processes, environments, products, brand strategies and experiences. Past and present clients include the Royal Academy of Art, the British Museum, Getty Images, Asprey, the Crafts Council, Gagosian Gallery, McLaughlin-Rotman Centre, Deaf Culture Centre, Bullfrog Power, Pelli Clarke Pelli, Gotham Chamber Opera, Rizzoli Publishing, Electric Company Theatre, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery and D&M Publishing. She holds both a BFA (Photography), and a BA in Communication Design from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.