Over our 20 years, TFVA has awarded just shy of $900,000 to art and artists in the greater Toronto area. On Tuesday May 7th, 2019, we honoured and celebrated this year’s award recipients at Hart House, with a sellout audience of members, proposed members and guests from the art community.
Chair Sue Pielsticker and her team did a wonderful job organizing the evening, and the wine and food were wonderful.
The awardees, receiving a total of $65,000, were appreciative and enthusiastic and created palpable energy in the room. One awardee said: ‘Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts works across class, age, race and gender, and manages to reach into all the corners to extract and find the artists”. We should be very proud of that statement and it is a great credit to the three Award Committees, chaired by Harriet Stairs, Meredith Saunderson, and Frances Price, who research and discover this talent.
2019 Winners
Artist Prize Award, chair Harriet Stairs
Winner – Esmaa Mohamoud
Finalists – Michèle Pearson Clarke and Tau Lewis (who was unable to attend)
Project Support, chair Meredith Saunderson
The Bentway: Ilana Altman and David Carey
for New Monuments for New Cities
Barbara Edwards Contemporary Gallery and Mark Cheetham
for Ecologies of Landscape
Trinity Square Video and Mitchell Akiyama for Everyonce
Public Studio: Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky for Unsettled
K&F Video Productions: Maggie Butterfield Dickinson and Irina Fertman
for our own history video project
Founders Achievement Award, chair Frances Price
Dr. Katharine Lochnan
President Sally Bongard summed up the evening perfectly, commenting on what a privilege and honour it is, as members of TFVA, to be so close to the Toronto arts community, to learn so much more about what they are doing and to provide awards to such talent.
