Figureworks 2025 Jury

Photo by Mark Stephenson

The Figureworks prize is evaluated by a jury of peer professional artists, curators and arts administrators representing a broad range of media and forms of art.

Olivia Johnston is an award-winning lens-based artist whose work has been exhibited and published extensively. She uses a variety of photographic strategies as a means to explore questions about the photographic image, portraiture and art history; the self, the body, and illness; and the photographer’s relationship with memory. Her work explores social issues, practices of representation, and the boundaries and biases within her own and other’s belief systems.

Andrew Morrow is an award-winning, contemporary Canadian painter, whose professional practice is characterized by a restless desire to both inhabit and extend historical, narrative painting. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Queen's University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Ottawa. Morrow's work has been widely exhibited and reviewed throughout Canada and abroad. In addition to his practice as an artist, Morrow is a professor at the University of Ottawa, and a board member with the Council for the Arts in Ottawa. Morrow lives in Chelsea, QC, with his wife and two sons.

Jiaxuan Yi is a Canada-based award-winning artist, focusing on oil portraiture, landscape, and calligraphy. His work is an attempt to break the traditional patterns of visual arts without rejecting their classical essence. He graduated with distinction from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, receiving a diploma in Fine Arts, a B.A. degree in Painting, and an M.A. degree in Drawing Research, after which he took PhD-level courses in art history and calligraphy to quest for knowledge.

His works have been selected for exhibitions in professional and academic institutions across Canada and internationally, such as the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts in the UK. His recent awards include the RSMA Charles Pears Award, the RBSA Portrait Prize Exhibition Highly Commended Award, multiple awards from the Portrait Society of America, the Biafarin Award in the Open International Juried Exhibition of the Society of Canadian Artists, and the CollexArt Awards. Jiaxuan is an Elected Member of the Society of Canadian Artists and Ontario Society of Artists.