Our Prize-winners in the News!  May 2023 Edition

Our latest reminiscences capture the impact of TFVA’s recognition on some of our earlier Artist Prize Winners:

Mark Bell  Artist Prize 2004

“Winning the TFVA’s Artist Prize wasn’t just a matter of receiving a much-needed cheque to continue working as a young artist. It was an in-depth dialogue with a dedicated group of people who cared passionately about art. It was also a reminder that beyond my own solitary practice there existed a large community of supportive individuals who were working hard to bolster the Toronto art scene as a whole. It was such an honour to be included in that process. Since that time, I have continued painting and exhibiting in public and commercial galleries.”

Jon Sasaki – Artist Prize Finalist 2009

“I didn’t have a studio in 2009 so my visit with the Toronto Friends was held in my tiny apartment with ten Friends sharing six chairs. My embarrassment evaporated quickly, when I realized I was in the company of the most kind, attentive and thoughtful art lovers I could hope to meet. I showed some videos that expressed the anxiety I felt around art making, depicting it as a solitary, thankless, and futile struggle. In response the Friends asked great questions and offered helpful and encouraging feedback. When the visit was over, I felt buoyed by the experience. Making art after that felt a little less solitary, thankless, and futile.”

Anique Jordan – Artist Prize 2020

“Receiving the TFVA award in 2020 provided invaluable support during a time when things were rapidly changing in the world and working in the arts was becoming more challenging than ever. Since 2020, I’ve returned to school as a Photography MFA student at Rhode Island School of Design and my practice has changed quite a bit. The pandemic, the very public murders of Black people during that summer, and the ongoing and often denied climate crisis has really forced me to think deeply about today and how we can more lovingly acknowledge and usher in the possibility of other ways of constructing and caring for the world and each other. I’m still learning what this means for me, but right now it has shown up as exploring spirit worlds, surrealism, and structuralism.”


 

Prize winners current exhibitions include:

 

Nadia Belerique – Artist Prize 2015
Derek Liddington – Artist Prize Finalist 2011

Nadia Belerique and Derek Liddington were recently part of the Daniel Faria Gallery’s exhibition at the Plural Art Fair in Montreal. This fair, organized by the Contemporary Art Association, celebrates the best of contemporary art in Canada from 49 galleries located in 8 cities.

Click here to learn more


Edward Burtynsky – Founders Achievement 2008

Edward Burtysnky is part of the group exhibition, Uniform!, which runs from April 15 to September 10, 2023, at the Museum Helmond (located in the city of the same name in the Netherlands). The show explores the role of men’s work clothing from a practical and social point of view.

Click here to learn more. If text is not in English, click ‘menu’, then small coloured symbol, and then British flag. 


Sameer Farooq – Artist Prize Finalist 2022

A work by Sameer Farooq will be remounted as part of the exhibition, Time and Again Kemet, at the Rijksmuseum in Leiden, Netherlands. Running from April 22, the group show of four artists, features their contemporary and personal perspectives on antiquities from Egypt in this small exhibition. In doing so, they question the well-known Eurocentrist representations of Egyptian culture which arose in the nineteenth century.

Click here to learn more


Ghazaleh Avarzamani – Artist Prize 2022

Particular Good Game for Self PunishmentGhazaleh Avarzamani’s first solo exhibition in Montreal, runs from April 15 to May 20, 2023 at the Galerie Nicholas Robert . Ghazaleh’s work, as always, asks us to explore the hypocritical idea of security/safety and how it plays and fails. It challenges the normative and suggests a reformation of the status quo.

Click here to learn more about the exhibition


Vesna Perunovich – Artist Prize 2005

Vesna Perunovich’s solo show in Belgrade, Serbia opened in March of this year. The exhibition, entitled Home Paradigm: A New Place of Belonging, is a thematic survey of the past fifteen years in her career. Congratulations Vesna on this show in your birthplace!

Click here to learn more from the digital compendium of activities in Belgrade, STILL IN BELGRADE


Jennifer Rose Sciarrino – Artist Prize 2013

Jennifer Sciarrino’s works are currently on view in the permanent collection galleries at the AGO.

Click here to listen to a previous AGO Art in the Spotlight video where Jennifer speaks about her work


Sandra Brewster – Artist Prize 2018
Chris Curreri – Artist Prize 2011

TFVA congratulates both Sandra Brewster and Chris Curreri who are short-listed for this year’s Scotiabank Photography Award. The finalists and winner will be announced in early May.

Click here to learn more


Adam David Brown – Artist Prize 2009

Under the Influence (April 21 – May 26 2023) is on exhibit at the Smokestack Gallery in Hamilton, Ontario. Working collaboratively, Adam Brown and Kristina Lahde (both 2023 Smokestack Analog Print Residency participants) explore the notion of touch and the principle “less is more”.

Click here to learn more
Click here to read a brief interview (featured in Akimbo) with Adam and Kristiina


Inuit Art Foundation – Project Support 2023
Onsite Gallery – Project Support 2022

Up Front: Inuit Public Art at Onsite Gallery, one of the TFVA Project Support Awards, is already underway! If you walk past OCADU’s Onsite Gallery’s outside wall on Richmond Street West in downtown Toronto, you will see a mural by Inuk photographer Robert Kautuk. This work is the third instalment of Up Front: Inuit Public Art at Onsite Gallery—a series of commissioned digital murals by Inuit artists that is being displayed at Onsite Gallery over a two-year period in a partnership between The Inuit Art Foundation and OCAD.

Click here to read a recent release about the project
Click here to learn more


Laurie Kang – Artist Prize Finalist 2015

Mercer Union’s SPACE billboard commission has invited Laurie Kang for its 2022-2023 season to create a year-long series titled, Mother Always Has a Mother. Working with textiles for the first time, Laurie has produced a series of three sculptural works that translate ideas of inheritance, loss, and lineage through the vernacular of seams, frayed edges, and folds. Each edition features reproductions of renderings by the artist in photographic chemistry.

Click here to learn more


Alvin Luong – Artist Prize Finalist 2023
Michèle Pearson Clarke – Artist Prize Finalist 2019

TFVA congratulates Alvin Luong and Michèle Pearson Clarke for being long-listed for the Sobey Art Award for 2023. Presented annually, the award celebrates some of our country’s most exciting artists and provides significant financial recognition. The jury creates a list of five artists from each region, selected from all regional nominees, and based on the jurors’ professional knowledge of their regions and of the national art scene. The jury then meets and chooses its shortlist, with one finalist from each region. The 2023 Sobey Art Award is jointly administered by the National Gallery of Canada and the Sobey Art Foundation.

Click here for more information about the Sobey Art Award and this year’s list of artists

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