Esmaa Mohamoud, Untitled (No Fields), 2018. Repurposed football gear, African wax print, chain, black astroturf, Nikes.
Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts (TFVA) issued its 2019 award announcement this week, with a total in $77,500 distributed.
Leading the awards is Esmaa Mohamoud, who is receiving the $15,000 Artist Prize. Mohamoud works in sculpture and installation focused on cultural constructs of Blackness. Recently, her work was featured in Frieze magazine and in a For Freedoms project in New York.
Runners-up for the Artist Prize this year are Tau Lewis, who won a Frieze Frame Stand Prize last year, and Michèle Pearson Clarke, who was recently named photographer laureate of Toronto. Each receives $5,000.
Recognized with the $10,000 TFVA Founders Achievement Award was Katharine Lochnan. Now retired from the Art Gallery of Ontario, where she worked for decades as a curator and created a Prints and Drawings Department, Lochnan is continuing academic pursuits.
Public Studio, a collective comprised of Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky, are receiving $8,000 in project support from TFVA to produce an artist book about a 57-day walk along the Bruce Trail.
The new Museum of Contemporary Art also received $12,500 from TFVA.
All these recipients and more will be celebrated at an event May 7 at Hart House in Toronto.
Esma Mohamoud in collaboration with Qendrim Hoti, One of the Boys, 2017–18. Repurposed jerseys and various materials.
Three sculptures from Esmaa Mohamoud's Glorious Bones series at the Georgia Scherman Projects booth at Art Toronto 2018. Photo: Instagram / @i.witness.
