Meryl McMaster’s Meryl 1 (2010), which was featured at the 2011 Canadian Art Gallery Hop Gala and Auction / photo courtesy of the artist and Katzman Kamen Gallery
Today, Gerda Hnatyshyn, president and chair of the board of the Hnatyshyn Foundation, announced the creation of the Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Canadian Artists.
The awards are designed to honour professional Canadian artists under 30, with the winners being selected by a recipient of the mid-career Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence.
Meryl McMaster, Jordan Bennett and Philip Gray are the first three recipients of the prize, receiving $5,000 each.
They were chosen by Philip Monk, director of the Art Gallery of York University and the 2011 recipient of the Hnatyshyn Award for Curatorial Excellence.
McMaster, Bennett and Gray are all increasingly well known in Canada for their adept bridging of traditional First Nations cultures and various contemporary cultures.
Meryl McMaster creates photographic work that incorporates manual production, performance and self-reflection.
Her portraits generate what Monk calls a “bi-cultural dialogue within the present tense that, nonetheless, brings the past into the present and receptively enacts the possibilities of our divided personas.”
Jordan Bennett, a multidisciplinary artist of Mi’kmaq descent from the west coast of Newfoundland, is currently the first Indigenous Artist in Residence at the University of Alberta. In past works, he has applied native beadwork to skateboards and Vans slip-on sneakers, as well as enacted a poster project in Venice during the 2011 Biennale.
Monk states that “Jordan makes highly articulated artifacts that create a common ground between First Nations culture and contemporary sub-cults—except that in the process he subtly asserts the ethos and technical precedence of his people’s traditions that have been generously given to and unconsciously absorbed within Western culture.”
Philip Gray began learning how to carve at the age of 15 under the direction of Salish artist Gerry Sheena. He now endeavours to incorporate elements of Tsimshian style into his practice.
As Monk notes, “Traditionally trained and carving in wood in Tsimshian style, Philip Gray demonstrates that, on the west coast of Canada, the opposition between traditional and contemporary art makes no sense. Philip continues and contributes to the luminous renaissance of First Nations carving, proving it to be a signal achievement in contemporary art.”
The Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Canadian Artists is due to be awarded annually for three years, beginning this year. Named for artist Charles Pachter, it will be celebrated with a private ceremony November 24 at Pachter’s Moose Factory Gallery in Toronto.
