Before the winner is announced tonight, meet this year's finalists.
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Hi, Art!

Saturday, November 09, 2024

Hi, Art!

Saturday, November 09, 2024

Hi, art lovers!

 
Photo illustration for the Sobey Art Award. A grid of coloured squares. Black and white photos appear in six of the squares: portraits of the nominees.

(National Gallery of Canada)

 
It won’t be long before the 2024 Sobey Art Award is announced — this year’s gala happens tonight in Ottawa. But who will take home the $100,000 prize, Canada’s top honour in contemporary art?

Before you start sending me your predictions, let me introduce the finalists. In the running are six artists from regions across the country: Judy Chartrand (Pacific), Taqralik Partridge (Circumpolar), Rhayne Vermette (Prairies), June Clark (Ontario), Nico Williams (Quebec) and Mathieu Léger (Atlantic). And last week, CBC Arts got better acquainted with them all. Over email, your favourite medium and mine, each artist answered the same questionnaire. Still, I think you’ll discover each conversation is insightful in its own way. Read the complete collection here, and for more on this year’s shortlisters, the National Gallery of Canada has video profiles on YouTube.
 
 

Because we promised you eye candy ...

 
Artwork made of glass fragments: some printed with photos. They are sauldered together like a stained-glass window.

Ryan Van Der Hout

A Quiet Break by Ryan Van Der Hout is one of the works appearing in Mending Shards, a solo exhibition at United Contemporary. The show opens Thursday in Toronto, and the title should give you a hint about Ryan’s process. The artist prints photos on glass, then breaks the images and reassembles the pieces.
 
Photo of a large-scale artwork: a symmetrial assemblage of cut-out flowers, cut from photographs of a flowering meadow.

Tyler Los-Jones

Tyler Los-Jones Instagrammed this picture of a recent public art project (Knit by Roots and Wings) — a bit of paradise in what appears to be a Kelowna, B.C., parking lot.
 
Photo of two black and white textile artworks suggesting the folds of mountains. They hang on a white wall.

Eva Kolcze

Here’s a photo from the Haptics of Optics, a group show at Namara Projects in Toronto. The write-up on the gallery website says the featured artists engage in “unravelling perception and time through material,” and I’d say Eva Kolcze nailed it. That texture — wow! You’re looking at a pair of her textile works: Image in the Stone — Descending and Image in the Stone — Curve. 
 
Photo of a sculpture that appears to be a delicate chair, or perhaps a delicate insect. Either way, it is made of a mix of ceramics and plant parts and rests in an empty room with white walls and wood floors.

Eunice Luk

At YYZ Artists’ Outlet in Toronto, Eunice Luk has created a bizarre and beautiful ecosystem for her solo show, Sympoiesis. This is just one of the “critters” you’ll find at the gallery. 
 
Several artworks, most abstract photo collage, installed on a white wall.

Caroline Mauxion

And finally, a glimpse of the Paris Photo fair. Montreal artist Caroline Mauxion has this new work at the Zalucky Contemporary booth. 
 
 

You've got to see this

 
 
 
Black and white image. Medium shot. A woman in an apron works on something. She stands in front of a cluttered studio table.
National Gallery of Canada

What does it take to call yourself an artist?

 
June Clark’s creative work spans five decades, and over her long career, she’s shown at Canada’s top galleries. Now 83 and up for a Sobey, June hasn’t always thought of herself as an artist. Find out when that changed.
 
Close-up photo of a balding white man with a bushy dark beard.
Mathieu Léger

How art lets Mathieu Léger 'make sense’ of a chaotic world

 
The Sobey-nominated artist takes us inside his practice and discusses the body of work he’s currently showing at the National Gallery of Canada. Its centrepiece? A drum kit.
 
Medium closeup of a smiling woman with wavy silver hair and dark-frame glasses.

National Gallery of Canada

 

Once shy, art helped Judy Chartrand discover her ‘very loud voice'

 
Once upon a time, the Vancouver-based ceramicist was ready to give up on her artistic dream. Today, she’s a Sobey finalist.
 

Follow this artist

 
 
 
Instagram

Nico Williams

@odehmin
Photo of a life-size blue Ikea shopping bag, entirely made of glass seed beads. It is full of wooden spoons.

Nico Williams

VHS tapes, scratch tickets … and this incredible Ikea bag. Nico Williams is renowned for his beaded replicas of everyday items, and the Anishinaabe artist from Aamjiwnaang First Nation is the Sobey finalist repping for Quebec. His CBC Arts questionnaire is a delightful read, and if you want to learn more about his practice (and the exhibition he recently opened on Manitoulin Island), CBC News has an interview too.
 

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I’m Leah Collins, senior writer at CBC Arts. Until next time!

 
XOXO CBC Arts
XOXO CBC Arts
 
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