Vancouver based artist Dana Claxton has received a $25,000 prize from the Hnatyshyn Foundation for outstanding achievement by a Canadian mid-career artist.
Claxton works in film, video, photography, performance, multi-channel installation and curation.
Her work has been exhibited and collected internationally, and her films have been screened in more than 30 countries.
Her family reserve is Wood Mountain Lakota First Nation in southwest Saskatchewan.
The winner of the $15,000 award for curatorial excellence in contemporary art is Catherine Bédard, who is based in Paris.
She has curated important exhibitions and translated the work of other historians such as Bram Kempers and Jeffrey Hamburger. She currently sits on the Patronage Committee for the Fondation des Artistes in Paris, where she promotes Canadian art in France.
Awards of $10,000 each for emerging artist and emerging curator go to artist Walter Scott and curator Tarah Hogue.
Scott is a Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk) artist working in diverse media — including sculpture, drawing, video, performance and graphic novels — and explores the navigation of social and emotional worlds. His Wendy comic strip and books have gained critical acclaim and a cult following.
Hogue is a curator, cultural worker and writer. She is the inaugural senior curatorial fellow for Indigenous art at the Vancouver Art Gallery. She was raised in Red Deer, Alta., and is a member of the Métis Nation with French-Canadian and Dutch ancestry.
The William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes of $5,000 each for young artists go to Annie Beach, Evin Collis and Niamh Dooley.
Beach is a visual artist currently studying for a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with Honours at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art. Beach is Cree and Saulteaux iskwew, with family from Peguis First Nation, Treaty 1.
Collis is a multidisciplinary artist and educator who creates drawings, paintings, comics, sculptures and stop-motion animations that often investigate the complexities of history, identity, isolation and the degraded landscape. In 2016, he graduated with an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Dooley is an Oji-Cree and Irish artist based in Winnipeg, Treaty 1 territory. She is a band member of St. Theresa Point First Nation in Treaty 5 territory of Manitoba, but grew up in Treaty 3 territory in Sioux Lookout, Ontario. She graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2017.
The winners were selected by panels of art experts.
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Source: The Hnatyshyn Foundation
