Audain Prize Honours Artist Susan Point

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Susan Point is the recipient of this year's Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts.

The Vancouver Art Gallery announced the award, one of British Columbia's most prestigious honours, along with the recipients of the VIVA Awards, Charlene Vickers and the collaborative team of Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed.  

The VIVA Awards are granted annually by the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts. All awards will be presented May 24.

“The Vancouver Art Gallery is thrilled to recognize four outstanding artists with the most coveted arts awards in the province," said Kathleen Bartels, the gallery's director. "This is a night to celebrate and spotlight British Columbia’s finest artists whose work has had significant influence on visual arts in Canada.” 

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Susan Point, "Up Stream Quest," 2016

red cedar, acrylic paint, (collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Acquisition Fund, photo by Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery)

Point, of the Musqueam First Nation, inherited ancestral learnings and the traditions of her people from her mother. The daughter of Edna Grant and Anthony Point, and the niece of Dominic Point and Mike Kew, she has been a key figure in rebuilding the vitality of Salish art. Her work draws inspiration from the designs of her ancestors and explores the use of non-traditional materials.

Point has exhibited in North America, Europe and Asia. She is represented in the collections of museums throughout Canada and the United States and has produced more than 40 pieces of public art. 

An Officer of the Order of Canada, Point has been recognized with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contributions to Canada. She has also been acknowledged with an Indspire Achievement Award, a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award, a B.C. Creative Achievement Award, among other honours.

Point has honorary doctorates from the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia and Emily Carr University of Art and Design. In 2016, Point received the City of Vancouver’s Civic Merit Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award for First Nations Art from the B.C. Achievement Foundation. In 2017, the Vancouver Art Gallery organized a survey exhibition titled Susan Point: Spindle Whorl. 

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Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed, "SOUR VS SOUR," 2016–present

dark chocolate, dried fruit, candy, polyester cosmetic web, (courtesy of the artists)

VIVA Award co-recipients Helen Reed and Hannah Jickling have collaborated since 2006. Their projects take shape as public installations, social situations and events that circulate as photographs, videos, printed matter and artists’ multiples. They are  fascinated with collaborative research, especially in their recent projects with children.

Reed and Jickling have exhibited and performed internationally, with both individual and collaborative work appearing in such venues as: The Portland Art Museum in Oregon, The Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina, Smack Mellon in New York, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Power Plant in Toronto and elsewhere.  Last year, they released Multiple Elementary, a book that explores the elementary school classroom as a site of contemporary art practices.

They are recipients of the 2016 Ian Wallace Award for Teaching Excellence at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and a 2017 Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Public Art in Vancouver.

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Charlene Vickers, "Accumulations of Moments Spent Underwater with the Sun and Moon" series, 2015–16 (detail), 34 paintings

watercolour, gouache, and coloured pencil on paper, (courtesy of Fazakas Gallery, photo by Alex Gibson)

VIVA Award recipient Charlene Vickers’ work investigates memory, territorial embodiment and cultural gesture as connections to her birthplace of Kenora, Ont. Vickers, Anishinaabe from Wauzhushk Onigum First Nation, explores identity through painting, sculpture, performance and video. Recent  watercolour and gouache paintings refer to traditional porcupine quillwork as a series of formal rhythms and patterns that gain subtle detail and increased abstraction with each iteration.

Vickers holds an MFA from Simon Fraser University. She has participated in exhibitions and performances at Urban Shaman in Winnipeg and Artspeak, the grunt galley and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, all in Vancouver. Her work is in the permanent collection of UBC's Museum of Anthropology.

Established in 2004, the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts is supported by the Audain Foundation. It grants $30,000 annually to a senior British Columbia artist selected by an independent jury. Previous winners include Carole Itter (2017), Paul Wong (2016), Michael Morris (2015), Fred Herzog (2014), Takao Tanabe and Gathie Falk (2013), Marian Penner Bancroft (2012), Rodney Graham (2011), Robert Davidson (2010), Liz Magor (2009), Jeff Wall (2008), Gordon Smith (2007), Eric Metcalfe (2006), E.J. Hughes (2005) and Ann Kipling (2004). 

Established in 1988, the VIVA Awards provide a minimum of $12,000 annually to celebrate exemplary achievement by mid-career artists, chosen for outstanding accomplishment and commitment by an independent jury. 

The awards will be presented at the Four Seasons Hotel at 7 p.m. on May 24. The ceremony is free and open to the public.

Source: Vancouver Art Gallery