Rafael Goldchain, Angela Grauerholz and Isabelle Hayeur have been announced as the shortlisted artists for the 2015 Scotiabank Photography Award. The award positions itself as “Canada’s largest annual peer-reviewed celebration of excellence in Canadian contemporary photography,” and the SPA shortlist was determined by three voting jury members: artist Robert Bean, art historian Catherine Bédard and critic Robert Enright.
Toronto-based Rafael Goldchain, born in Santiago, Chile, of Polish-Jewish heritage, gathered acclaim for his series of self-portraits and images of his ancestors, which draw on experiences of loss in the Holocaust and displacement in South and Central America. His life and work are depicted in the 2013 documentary film Beautifully Broken: The Life and Times of Rafael Goldchain.
A veteran of the Montreal art scene, Angela Grauerholz has been critically noted for 35 mm works that capture women and landscapes in a highly atmospheric approach to photography. Her retrospective, “The Inexhaustible Image,” was shown at the National Gallery of Canada in 2010.
Montreal-based Isabelle Hayeur is best known for her large-format digital montages of suburban landscapes that depict the blights and sprawl of urban environs. The National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Vancouver Art Gallery and Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, among others, have collected her work.
The winner of the award will be announced on May 6, and will receive a $50,000 prize, a major solo exhibition at the Ryerson Image Centre and have a book of their work produced and distributed by German publisher Steidl. And, this year, for the first time, the two finalists will receive $10,000 each—an increase from the previous award of $5,000.
An exhibition of works by last year’s winner, Mark Ruwedel, opens April 29 at the RIC. Previous SPA winners include Stan Douglas, Arnaud Maggs and Lynne Cohen.
