Art
2022 Sobey Art Award shortlist revealed
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The shortlisted artists nominated for Canada’s most prestigious contemporary art prize, the Sobey Art Award, have been revealed. Now in its 20th year and doling out a whopping C$400,000 (around $318,000) in prize money—C$100,000 going to the winner, C$25,000 to each of the other shortlisted finalists and $10,000 each to those longlisted—the artists in the running for the top honour have been winnowed down to just five names, each representing a region of the vast country.
Still in the hunt, as announced by the Sobey Art Foundation and the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) on Wednesday (8 June), are Tyshan Wright (from the Atlantic region), Stanley Février (from Québec), Azza El Siddique (from Ontario) Divya Mehra (from the Prairies and north) and Krystle Silverfox (from the West Coast and Yukon). They are hoping to succeed last year’s winner Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, whose presentation included a polar bear she shot and skinned after it had invaded her cabin one night. In 2020, due to Covid-19, the prize was shared equally among all 25 longlisted artists.
The five finalists will be featured in an exhibition at the NGC running from 28 October 2022 until February 2023. The winner will be announced at a gala ceremony. Among those who will be on hand that night is Rob Sobey, chair of the foundation, who referred to the five shortlisted artists as “gifted individuals”. He added: “I personally can’t wait to see the exhibition of their works at the National Gallery this fall.”
Each of the five talked about what it meant to be considered for the award, Wright calling it “a humbling feeling” and Mehra “an honour to be recognized and celebrated for your work in this way”. Silverfox said, “Being included as a shortlist finalist is such a wonderful moment for me.”
Février went further, saying, “This nomination is a symbol of perseverance and hope, not only for me, but for all the artists who work in the shadows; to believe that one day their efforts will be rewarded. I spent 14 years doing my practice in the shadows without receiving any support.”
El Siddique added, “As a product of immigrant parents and the lack of representation of artists of colour, especially in Canada, I never saw being an artist as a viable profession. It is great to see more representation, especially in Canada’s art landscape, so that young artists can see themselves within this field.”
Wright hails from Accompong, Jamaica, a historical Maroon village, and is known for his mixed-media representations of Maroon instruments and ceremonial objects. Some 600 Maroons were expelled from the island by the British governor in 1796 and sent to Halifax, Nova Scotia. His work has been acquired by the Nova Scotia Art Bank and has also been shown at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto and the Canadian Museum of Immigration in Halifax. He also served as an artist-in-residence fellow at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University (NSCAD).
Février, a multidisciplinary artist, has an interesting background as he was a social worker before becoming a full-time artist. Schooled at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), he’s shown widely, both in Canada and abroad, with nearly 25 solo exhibitions to his name. His work is in the collections of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
El Siddique earned degrees from both the Yale School of Art and Toronto’s Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD). She has been included in group exhibitions at both the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and the Gardiner Museum in Toronto and the Shin Gallery in New York, with solo shows at Toronto’s Towards gallery and the Harbourfront Centre, as well as Helena Anrather Gallery in New York. She has another solo show opening 30 June at the MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mehra, who studied at Columbia University, deals primarily with her own diasporic experiences and historical narratives. She incorporates found artifacts and readymade objects as signifiers of resistance or as reminders of the difficult realities of displacement, loss, neutrality and oppression. Her practice encompasses sculpture, print, drawing, books, installation, advertising, performance, video and film.
Silverfox is an interdisciplinary artist and member of the Selkirk First Nation (Wolf Clan) who currently lives and works on the territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in and is based in Dawson City, Yukon. She’s earned degrees at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and from Simon Fraser University. Using a variety of materials, Silverfox is inspired by Indigenous feminism, trans-nationalism, de-colonialism, activism and lived experience.
- Sobey Art Award 2022, 28 October 2022-February 2023, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.
Art
Couple transforms Interlake community into art hub, live music 'meeting place' – CBC.ca
A trio plays a cover of The Eagles hit Take it Easy as a dozen people settle in for an intimate open mic night inside Derrick McCandless and Dawn Mills’s cozy spot off highways 6 and 68 in Manitoba’s Interlake.
Strings of antique-style light bulbs cast a soft glow over the mandolin, banjo and dobro guitar that hang on a wall behind the band. An array of pottery shaped in-house by Mills dots the shelves behind the audience.
The Eriksdale Music & Custom Frame Shop is full of tchotchkes — like an Elvis Presley Boulevard street sign and vintage Orange Crush ad — that create the rustic country-living vibe the couple dreamt up before buying and transforming the vacant space over the past three years.
“I have met so many people in this community through them that I probably wouldn’t have … because of this hub,” says Mills’s cousin Dana-Jo Burdett.
Mills and McCandless are bringing people together in their rural community in more ways than one — though a return to Mills’s hometown wasn’t always in the cards.
The couple met in Winnipeg in 2011 while McCandless was playing a party at Mills’s cousin’s place. They had plans to settle in the Okanagan in McCandless’s home province of B.C. until he suffered a health scare. After that, they decided to head back to the Prairies.
WATCH | McCandless and Mills channel creative spirit into Eriksdale community:
It was the height of the pandemic in fall 2020 when the pair relocated to Eriksdale, about 130 km northwest of Winnipeg. They bought the old Big Al’s shop, once a local sharpening business that was sitting vacant.
“He was an icon in the community. He was a school teacher. He did a drama program here,” said Mills. “He brought a lot to the town.”
The building has become their own personal playground and live-in studio.
“It keeps evolving and we keep changing it and every room has to serve multi-function,” says Mills. “It’s a meeting place.”
While they love the quiet life of their community, they’re also a busy couple.
McCandless is a multi-instrumentalist with a former career in the Armed Forces that took him all over. Now, he’s a shop teacher in Ashern who sells and fixes instruments out of the music shop.
WATCH | McCandless plays an original song:
Mills helped found Stoneware Gallery in 1978 — the longest running pottery collective in Canada. She offers professional framing services and sells pottery creations that she throws in-studio.
They put on open mic nights and host a summer concert series on a stage next door they built together themselves. They’re trying to start up a musicians memorial park in Eriksdale too.
One of their bigger labours of love is in honour of McCandless’s good friends Roger Leonard Young, David Kim Russell and Tony “Leon” — or Lee — Oreniuk. All died within months of each other in 2020-2021.
“That was a heart-wrenching year,” McCandless says.
They channeled their grief into something good for the community and started the RogerKimLee Music Festival.
Friends from Winnipeg and the Interlake helped them put on a weekend of “lovely music, lovely food, lovely companionship” as a sort of heart-felt send off, said Mills.
That weekend it poured rain. Festival-goers ended up in soggy dog piles on the floor of the music shop to dry out while Mills and McCandless cooked them sausages and eggs to warm up.
“It was just a great weekend,” says McCandless. “At the end of that, that Sunday, we just said that’s it, we got to do this.”
Mills says the homey community spirit on display during that inaugural year is what the couple has been trying to “encourage in people getting together” ever since.
The festival has grown to include a makers’ market, car show, kids activities, workshops, camping, beer gardens, good food and live music.
This summer, Manitoba acts The Solutions, Sweet Alibi and The JD Edwards Band are on the lineup Aug. 16-18.
Burdett has been a part of the growth, helping with branding, social media and marketing. McCandless and Mills’s habit of bringing people together has also rubbed off on Burdett.
“There’s more of my people out here than I thought, and I am very grateful for that,” says Burdett.
Their efforts to breathe new artistic life into Eriksdale caught the attention of their local MLA.
“The response from family and friend and community has been outstanding,” Derek Johnston (Interlake-Gimli) said during question period at the Manitoba Legislature in March.
“The RogerKimLee Music Festival believes music to be a powerful force for positive social change.”
Dolly Lindell, who has lived in Eriksdale for about three decades, said the couple is adding something valuable that wasn’t quite there before.
“There’s a lot of people that we didn’t even know had musical talent and aspirations and this has definitely helped bring it out,” Lindell says from the audience as McCandless, Dave Greene and Mark Chuchie wrap their rendition of Take it Easy.
McCandless, 61, said there was a time in his youth where he dreamed of a becoming a folk music star. Now his musical ambitions have changed. He’s focused on using that part of himself to bring people together.
“I think it’s that gift that I was given that that needs to be shared,” he says. “I don’t think I could live without sharing it.”
WATCH | Trio plays song at Eriksdale music shop:
Art
Meet artist J-Positive and the family behind his art store – CBC.ca
- 1 day ago
- News
- Duration 4:42
Joel Jamensky’s sunny disposition explains why the artist with Down syndrome uses the name ‘J-positive’ for his online art business, started with the help of his parents two years ago. “There’s a lot more going on in [Joel’s] art than may be at first glance – just like him,” said his dad, Mark.
Art
Made Right Here: Woodworking art – CTV News Kitchener
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Made Right Here: Woodworking art CTV News Kitchener
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