Celebrating visual art of the human form / Célébrer l’art visuel de la forme humaine
Photo: Nicole Lewis
Andrew Ackerman, Durrah Alsaif, Nima Arabi, Kendall Ayoub-Nichols, Steven Bradbury, Robert Creighton, Christine De Vuono, Benjamin Entner, Allison Fagan, Gary Franks, Ao Gao, Brandon Giessmann, Gianni Giuliano, Michael Goodson, Abigail Gossage, Nicci Haynes, John Healey, Horst Herget, Niloo Inalouei, Lindsay Irene, Jason John, Louise Kermode, Patricia La Prairie, Jaymie Lathem, Ava Margueritte, Celeste Marten, Angelina McCormick, Addie Kae Mingilton, Hanna Newman, Rosemarie Peloquin, Tamar Segev, Bonnie Sheckter, Aaron Sidorenko, Mike Steinhauer, and Scott Waters.
On November 20, 2019 we celebrated 35 artist finalists selected for Figureworks 2019. These artists were selected from 530 entries from 346 artists located across Canada and internationally. Works included photographs, sculptures, paintings, drawings, videos and fibre art.
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.
Michael Davidge is an artist, writer, and independent curator. He holds an M.A. in English Literature from Concordia University and an M.F.A. in Visual Arts from Western University. He is a proponent of artist-run culture and was the Artistic Director of Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre in Kingston before moving to Ottawa in 2012. Recent projects include Cultural Engineering, a multi-year artist-driven on-line video exploration of the Arts Court redevelopment project for SAW Video which culminated in an exhibition in 2018; and She Wants an Output: A Herstory of Punk in Ottawa for Carleton University Art Gallery in 2017. A member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), his writing on art and culture has appeared in publications such as BlackFlash, Border Crossings, C Magazine, Canadian Art, and the National Gallery of Canada Magazine. He is the Akimbo Akimblog arts correspondent for the National Capital Region.
Michael Davidge est artiste, écrivain et commissaire indépendant. Il est titulaire d'une maîtrise en littérature anglaise de l'Université Concordia et d'une maîtrise en beaux-arts de l’Université Western. Il adhère à la culture menée par les artistes et a été directeur artistique du Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre à Kingston avant de déménager à Ottawa en 2012. Parmi ses projets les plus récents, citons Cultural Engineering, une exploration vidéo en ligne menée par de multiples artistes sur plusieurs années sur le projet de réaménagement de Arts Court pour SAW Video qui a abouti à une exposition en 2018; et She Wants An Output: A Herstory of Punk in Ottawa pour la galerie d'art de l'Université Carleton en 2017. Membre de l'Association internationale des critiques d'art (AICA), ses écrits sur l'art et la culture ont paru dans des publications telles que BlackFlash, Border Crossings, C Magazine, Art canadien et le magazine du Musée des beaux-arts du Canada. Il est le correspondant artistique d’Akimbo Akimblog pour la région de la capitale nationale.
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.
Andrew Morrow est peintre canadien contemporain lauréat, dont sa pratique professionnelle se caractérise par un désir insatiable d'occuper et d'étendre la peinture narrative historique. Il est titulaire d’un baccalauréat en beaux-arts de l’Université Queen’s et d’une maîtrise en beaux-arts de l’Université d’Ottawa. Le travail de Morrow a été largement exposé et revu au Canada et à l’étranger. En plus de sa pratique d'artiste, Morrow est professeur à l'Université d'Ottawa et membre du conseil d'administration du Conseil des arts d'Ottawa. Morrow vit à Chelsea, QC, avec sa femme et ses deux fils.
Joanne Stober is a curator and programmer who has spent nearly two decades managing National collections of historical and contemporary art and photography at the Library and Archives Canada and as the Historian of War and Visual Culture at the Canadian War Museum. Her work is committed to managing and building collections, creating relationships with donors and stakeholders and working with Canadian artists. Joanne specializes in photography and film and focuses her work on curating and programming a mix of historical and contemporary works focusing on photojournalism and conflict. She has her PhD in Communications and Film History from Concordia University and teaches in the Visual Arts faculty at the University of Ottawa and is an Adjunct Professor at Carleton University in the School of Art and Culture. She has served twelve combined years on the Executive of the International Society of Cinema and Media Studies Archives Committee and the Film Studies Association of Canada. She is a regular contributor to BorderCrossings.
Joanne Stober est une commissaire et une programmatrice qui gère depuis près de 20 ans des collections nationales d'art et de photographie historiques et contemporaines à Bibliothèque et Archives Canada et comme historienne de la guerre et de la culture visuelle au Musée canadien de la guerre. Son travail consiste à gérer et à créer des collections, à créer des relations avec les donateurs et les intervenants et à travailler avec des artistes canadiens. Joanne se spécialise dans la photographie et le cinéma et concentre son travail sur la sélection et la programmation d'un mélange d'œuvres historiques et contemporaines axées sur le photojournalisme et les conflits. Elle détient un doctorat en communications et en histoire du cinéma de l'Université Concordia et elle enseigne à la faculté des arts visuels de l'Université d'Ottawa et est également professeure auxiliaire à l'école d'art et de culture de l'Université Carleton. Elle a siégé pendant douze ans à la direction du comité d'archives de la Société internationale du film et des études sur les médias et de la Film Studies Association of Canada. Elle contribue régulièrement à BorderCrossings.
Congratulations to the 2019 winners selected from 530 entries from 346 artists located across Canada and internationally.
2019 First Prize – $4000
As described by the jury: The technical brilliance of this composition is at once classical and contemporary. The materials used are a testament of the precarious state of our environment at this time, and foretells the dire consequences of our consumption habits.
Artist statement: "This work is a part of the Plastic Beach project. The plastic to create this work comes from items taken from Lake Michigan. "Plastic Beach magnifies the evidence of human polluting of freshwater resources by showing us the stuff right under our feet. It confronts us with the beauty of the very thing with which we are unwittingly poisoning the environment and ultimately ourselves."
Michigan Man after Arcimboldo by John Healey, 2019, Framed archival pigment print on Baryta, 40in x 32in
Scott Waters, 2019, Oil and acrylic on panel, 36in x 24in
An accomplished and compelling self portrait of a middle aged man, contemplative and self deprecating. The unfinished quality suggests the passage of time and in the artist's words; raises the middle finger to death.
The painting addresses the passage of time and a resistance to that unassailable fact. The band Metallica does a fine job of standing in for middle-aged white guys who, well past their artistic prime, just keep on trying. Perhaps the same can be said for the painter/sitter in this portrait. The tactical backpack is a reference to military culture (domain of the young and/or busted), and though unknowable, the aging cat is in the early stages of kidney failure. In short, this painting is a love letter (and a middle finger against) mortality. Relatedly, the nature occasionally realist nature of this painting is another reference to time: Specifically, the physical and temporal process of construction. So, on the one hand, stopping short "robs" the viewer of the often-desired high realism portraiture, but at the same time, the painting is frozen before completion, leaving both sitters in a state of half-life, permanently held between start and finish.
Lindsay Irene, 2019, Digital inkjet print on cotton rag, 40in x 32in
It has a powerful visual impact and backstory. There is a duality of strength and vulnerability in this unconventional direct and honest self portrait.
It wasn't the sex that was hard. In fact, sex was the easy part. It was catering to men who felt justified in seeing me while their wives were at home undergoing chemotherapy, the men who hurt my peers and tried to find sneaky ways of getting me to show up at their front door, the men who followed me throughout my career and beyond with an uneasy obsession, and the men who pined after my petite body and compared me to their teenage daughters (always announced while climaxing). That was the hard part.
I had stopped seeing clients for about a year at the time of this photo, yet I still encountered manipulative men from my past who seemed to always find ways of sustaining a once finite relationship. It was one night in particular that my feelings rose to the surface and I reacted by composing a photo announcing to the world that, in no uncertain terms, I was finished with the industry and to leave me alone.
It worked.
Rosemarie Peloquin, 2017, Hand needle-felted wool sculpture around a wood trunk slab, 33in x 11in x 18in
The piece shows a hight level of technical skill. The choice and integration of natural materials conveys a deeper wisdom.
Researching my mother's name I discovered the alder (aulne) was one of the trees in the druid's sacred grove. I melt wood and wool to personify these ancient repositories of communal wisdom.
Michael Goodson, 2019, Acrylic and Silicone on Masonite board, 72in x 48in
My painting explores the skin of paint as both a place of conjuring presence and as a medium exuding its own qualities. I would like to reflect an understanding of the way this skin suggests and creates empathy in the viewer through the dimpled sag of slackened skin, the muscular furrows of a worried brow and the scoring of laugh-lined cheeks. My work addresses both the languages of representation and our visceral responses to material.
In alphabetical order by artists name.