Public Studio (Elle Flanders & Tamira Sawatzky) Highway 1 2012 Laser-cut archival inkjet print 41” x 60” Courtesy the artists and O’Born Contemporary
Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts has announced its 2013 awards to be presented tonight in Toronto.
For the first time, there are two winners of the TFVA’s Artist Prize. Each receives $10,000.
One Artist Prize goes to Public Studio, a collective consisting of Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatzky. Founded in 2007, the collective’s practice combines Flanders’s expertise in documentary filmmaking with Sawatzky’s practice in architecture. Recent projects include Road Movie, a 12-screen installation based on travels and research in Israel and Palestine that was featured at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Berlinale.
The other Artist Prize goes to Jennifer Rose Sciarrino, who works in sculpture, installation and photography. In her works, Sciarrino often demonstrates a virtuosic ability to recreate textures and objects from the natural world. Her objects are never quite what they seem. She was recently included in a survey of Toronto sculpture at MOCCA and a solo show at Daniel Faria Gallery.
Dara Gellman, a finalist for the Artist Prize, receives $4,000. Her work in video and installation has been featured across Canada and internationally, with her latest works exploring concepts of the pearl in both mediums.
Three other award winners in the Toronto community were also announced.
Jessica Bradley, formerly a National Gallery curator and Venice Biennale commissioner and now director of Jessica Bradley Gallery, received the Achievement Award of $10,000.
The film Spring & Arnaud, produced by Site Media Inc. and focusing on artists Arnaud Maggs and Spring Hurlbut, received project support of $15,000. (Co-directed by Katherine Knight and Marcia Connolly, the film recently premiered at Hot Docs.)
And the $10,000 Founders Award went to the Power Plant to support a new artist’s book by Micah Lexier, which will accompany the upcoming exhibition “One, and Two, and More than Two,” a survey of Lexier’s work that opens on September 20.
These 2013 awards bring to $448,000 the total that the TFVA has contributed in support of artists and arts organizations since 1998.
