The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the winners of the 2018 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts. Funded and administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, the $25,000 cash prize includes categories for artistic achievement in visual and media arts, fine craft and outstanding contribution.
Established creators and ground-breaking visionaries, these esteemed winners selected by a committee of their peers provoke, question and investigate the nature of humanity. Their remarkable careers continue to impact the ever changing landscape of visual and media arts in this country.
"The remarkable careers and works of the artists being honoured today deserve to be known and shared. These artists have explored new territories by drawing on their own experience, by thinking about issues of concern to their communities, and by rejecting stifling conventions. Their works continue to change our perception of the world, and remind us that it is artistic creation that demonstrates our humanity."
– Simon Brault, Director and CEO, Canada Council for the Arts
Click on artist's name to access brief video.
The 2018 winners are:
Glenn Alteen, curator, director, Vancouver (Outstanding Contribution Award)
“Glenn Alteen has spent his career building a community through the consistent, respectful and ethical inclusion of artists, curators and cultural workers from diverse backgrounds. He has insisted on establishing – in grunt gallery – an artist-run centre that is more about artists than objects.” - Lorna Brown, artist, curator and writer based in Vancouver (nominator)
Bruce Eves, visual artist, Toronto
“Bruce Eves has a restless mind. His commitment to the rigor of historical research – whether art history, gay history, or his own personal history – has been at the core of his work across his 40-year career.” - Lily Eng, performance artist (nominator)
Wyn Geleynse, media artist, London, Ont.
“Wyn Geleynse’s practice is one of a restless tinkerer, someone who is endlessly experimenting with techniques both ancient and on the leading edge of the latest technology….” - Paul Walde (University of Victoria) and Andrew Wright (University of Ottawa), Artists, Associate Professors (co-nominators)
Spring Hurlbut, visual artist, Toronto
“Spring Hurlbut’s contemplative and eloquent works unsentimentally address mortality and our inevitable destiny in death. Her dedication to a subject so commonly avoided in contemporary Western culture is singular and courageous.” - Jessica Bradley, curator (nominator)
Midi Onodera, media artist, Toronto
“Midi Onodera gained critical acclaim very early in her career with two remarkable films: Ten Cents a Dance (Parallax) (1985) and The Displaced View (1989) which launched her reputation as a thoughtful, daring filmmaker at a time when there was very little diversity in Canadian art.” - Tanya Mars, performance artist and GGArts winner (2008) (nominator)
Sandra Semchuk, photographer, Vancouver
Semchuk’s “take on photography as collaborative project is a vital contribution to the medium – not as an imposition of a will but as a way of working towards an understanding of a problem.
She asks the viewer to enter that process of self-examination with her.” - Andrea Kunard, Curator
“Sandra Semchuk’s work reminds us of the necessity to continually rethink our positions as artists, as speaking subjects, as listeners.” - Althea Thauberger, artist (nominator)
Adrian Stimson, visual and performance artist, Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation in Alberta
"In Stimson’s work he often will use real materials like buffalo hide or the remnants of the actual residential school that he attended in order to ground his camp aesthetic in an actual experience or material reality. This is what marks his difference from other postmodern aesthetics and why his work has to oscillate between mourning and mayhem.” - Wanda Nanibush, Assistant Curator, Canadian and Indigenous Art, Art Gallery of Ontario (Nominated by Tomas Jonsson, visual artist, writer, cultural organizer)
Jack Sures, ceramic artist, Regina, Sask. (Saidye Bronfman Award)
“Over the past six decades, Jack Sures has displayed enormous creativity, innovation and technical mastery in Canadian craft... ... He has greatly influenced Canadian ceramics through his development of and longstanding involvement with the University of Regina's Ceramics Program, his pedagogical practice and his conceptual engagement with the vessel.” - Julia Krueger, craft researcher, writer and curator (nominator)
The 2018 peer assessment committees are:
Artistic Achievement and Outstanding Contribution categories:
• Philip Hoffman, filmmaker, educator (Mount Forest, Ont.)
• John Murchie, visual artist, curator (Sackville, N.B.)
• Nadia Myre, media/visual artist (Montreal)
• Louise Noguchi, visual artist (Toronto)
• Cate Rimmer, gallery director/curator (Vancouver)
Saidye Bronfman Award
• Elyse De Lafontaine, textile artist, instructor (Montreal)
• Virginia Eichhorn, gallery director/chief curator (Owen Sound, Ont.)
• Charles Lewton-Brain, goldsmith, associate professor (Calgary)
Important dates:
Wednesday, March 28 at 6:00pm -The awards ceremony and a presentation of the medallions by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada will take place at Rideau Hall in Ottawa.
Thursday, March 29 at 5:30pm - A public opening reception for an exhibition featuring selected works by this year’s winners, organized in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. The exhibition runs until August 5, 2018. Exhibition curator: Rhiannon Vogl, Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Canada
About the Saidye Bronfman Award
The Saidye Bronfman Award is Canada’s foremost distinction for excellence in fine crafts. Created in 1977 by the Bronfman family to honor their mother on her 80th birthday, the prize is awarded annually to an exceptional fine craft artist. In addition, works by the winners are acquired by the Canadian Museum of History for its permanent collection.
About the Outstanding Contribution Award
The Outstanding Contribution Award is given to an individual or a group of individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the visual arts (including architecture and photography), the media arts or fine craft, in a volunteer or professional capacity.
Source: Canada Council for the Arts
