Jury

Katherine McNenly

Katherine McNenly is an award-winning Canadian portrait and still life artist. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from York University in Toronto, and studied in Florence, Italy at the Cecil-Graves atelier and privately in the studio of John Michael Angel. She has also taken workshops with American realist painters Michael Grimaldi and Carlo Russo. In her professional practice, she is interested in the pursuit of the fusion of past and present in painting. She is a member of the Portrait Society of America, and has been a finalist and Honor award winner in their annual International Portrait Competition. She has been in numerous solo and group shows over the years. Her portraits and still lifes are in collections across Canada, the U.S. and Europe. She resides in Almonte, Ontario with her husband.

Katherine Takpannie

Almost every aspect of Inuit life has a belief attached to it: a way of showing people how to honour their values. As a self taught emerging photographer, Katherine Takpannie honours her Inuit worldview through her lens; one that is strongly grounded in social accountability and unity. To her, photography is the best medium to reclaim her identity and explore her experiences as an urban Inuk. She has studied her history, culture and language, and uses her knowledge to seamlessly convey her vision and emotion. Her visual language expands out from lush landscapes, to intimate self portraits, and gritty urban scenes. Her artistic practice also focuses on revealing the complexities and nuances of urban Inuit life, which includes capturing performative and political gestures of contemporary issues that Indigenous Canadians face daily. Katherine aims to help raise awareness, and bring forth important conversations through her work.

Nic Cooper

Ottawa-Gatineau based artist Nic Cooper's work considers the ways in which history is documented, remembered and contested. They probe their personal histories to pay homage to trailblazers and celebrate grassroots uprisings. They hold an MFA from the University of Ottawa (2020) where they were the recipient of the Charles Gagnon Scholarship (2019) and the Stonecroft Scholarships (2019). They have participated in artist residencies within Canada, Nicaragua and Israel-Palestine. Recently, they presented their artwork and research at the Narrative and Memory: Ethics, Aesthetics and Politics conference in Estonia and exhibited at the Ottawa Art Gallery. They are currently on the Board of Trustees at Galerie SAW Gallery in Ottawa and are an Interpreter/Animator at the National Gallery of Canada.