Georgia Dickie, Smoking Gun, 2012. Metal, rope, 12 x 87 inches. Courtesy Cooper Cole.
The Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts has announced its 2014 awards, recognizing artists, organizations and patrons in the Toronto area.
Georgia Dickie, an artist born in Toronto in 1989 who is known for sculpture with a precarious or variable quality, won the TFVA Artist Prize of $10,000. The prize’s press release noted that Dickie’s “practice seems to transcend time and ordinary language and therefore propels us towards a future, where everything is malleable, where transformation is the only constant.”
Ken Nicol, who is known for applying a methodical, conceptual approach to the everyday—including counting all the grains of salt in a takeaway salt package—has been recognized with the $4,000 Artist Prize Finalist award.
Commuters on Via Rail and Go Transit may also experience some of the TFVA’s largesse. That’s because the TFVA is also granting a project support award of $15,000 to Art Metropole in order to propel the art-multiple centre’s expansion into Toronto’s Union Station. During renovation of the station, which is ongoing, Art Metropole plans to establish an auxiliary exhibition, event and retail space in the commuter hub, which is used by more than 200,000 passengers each day. The TFVA’s award will enable Art Metropole to build movable modules for multiple uses at Union Station and other venues.
A $10,000 achievement award goes to lawyer Stephen Smart, whose “activities as a private collector, corporate collector, curator, lecturer, mentor and institutional advocate” have had a positive impact on the community.
Finally, a $5,000 Founders’ Award goes to Mercury Films as seed money to create a short documentary of artist’s work. The TFVA hopes the film will be a prototype for a Canadian artist film series.
The Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts is a non-profit volunteer organization that has given $500,000 to the visual arts community in the GTA since its inception in 1998.
