Sobey Art Award 2019 – Prairies and North
Kablusiak
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Kablusiak is an Inuvialuk artist and curator based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary), and a board member of Stride Gallery (Mohkinstsis). Awards include the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Young Artist Prize and the Primary Colours Emerging Artist Award.
Kablusiak has recently exhibited work at Art Mûr (Montreal) as part of the Biennale d’art contemporain autochtone, and at the Athens School of Fine Arts in Greece, as part of the Platforms Project. In addition, Kablusiak and three other Inuit curators will be creating the inaugural exhibition of the new Inuit Art Centre in 2020.
Kablusiak uses art and humour to address cultural displacement. The lighthearted nature of the artist’s practice extends gestures of empathy and solidarity; these interests invite reconsideration of the perceptions of contemporary indigeneity.
Visit the artist’s website.
Kablusiak works in diverse ways across mediums that go beyond artistic classifications, from drawing, animation, painting, soapstone carving and beading to karaoke, activism, curating and writing. The artist’s work is caring, tender, and imbued with a humour that is transgressive and disarming. It draws attention to cultural loss and longing, enacted through simple yet subversive acts such as carving a Diva Cup in soapstone, and singing a George Jones country song in Inuvialuktun, with a translation by the artist’s mother. With work that embodies perseverance, resolve, vulnerability, and intimacy, Kablusiak is definitely one of Canada’s most exciting artists.
Photo: Elyse Bouvier
Alana
Bartol
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Alana Bartol comes from a long line of water witches. Her site-responsive works explore walking and divination as ways of understanding places, species, and bodies. Selected exhibitions and festivals include Berlin Feminist Film Week (Germany), Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff), SIMULTAN Festival (Romania), Access Gallery (Vancouver), Esker Foundation Project Space (Calgary), Plug In ICA (Winnipeg), TRUCK Contemporary Art (Calgary), Latitude 53 (Edmonton), HOLD FAST Contemporary Arts Festival (St. John's), and InterAccess (Toronto), among others. Of Northern European ancestry, Bartol is a settler Canadian currently living in Treaty 7 territory in Mohkínstsis/Calgary, where she teaches at Alberta University of the Arts.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Catherine
Blackburn
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Catherine Blackburn was born in Patuanak, Saskatchewan, of Dene and European ancestry, and is a member of the English River First Nation. She is a multidisciplinary artist and jeweller, whose themes are often prompted by personal narratives in an exploration of the complexities of memory, history and identity.
Her work has been exhibited in notable group exhibitions, including Worlds on a String: Beads, Journeys, Inspirations at the Textile Museum of Canada (Toronto), the Bonavista Biennale (Newfoundland) and, most recently, My Sister: The Contemporary Indigenous Art Biennial (Montreal). She has received numerous grants and awards for her work, including a Governor General’s History Award, a Saskatchewan RBC Emerging Artist Award, and most recently, the Melissa Levin Emerging Artist Award.
Photo: Sweetmoon Photography (Tenille Campbell)
Curtis
Talwst Santiago
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Edmonton-born multidisciplinary artist Curtis Talwst Santiago apprenticed with Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, and has exhibited internationally at venues such as The FLAG Art Foundation (New York), New Museum (New York), and The Pérez Art Museum Miami, among others. He was also included in SITE Santa Fe’s SITELines.2018 Biennial in New Mexico, and was featured in the 2018 Biennale de Dakar in Senegal.
Santiago was profiled in the Canadian documentary series, In the Making, which showcased his art practice in Portugal. His work is in the permanent collection of the Studio Museum in Harlem (New York), and he has spent the past year living and working between Lisbon, Toronto, and New York City.
Photo: Luis Mora
The
Ephemerals
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The Ephemerals are a collective of Indigenous women from Winnipeg, interested in curatorial and creative-based research in film. The collective was established to foster and motivate artistic production within their individual practices, as well as to engage in collaborative projects revolving around Indigenous contemporary art.
The Ephemerals draw inspiration from their combined curatorial, interdisciplinary art practices and mixed cultural backgrounds. The collectiveʼs projects are fuelled by collaborative interventions and ephemeral affairs, pushing the boundaries of perceived indigeneity, while exploring notions of cultural appropriation, Indigenous feminism and motherhood, fashion, and cultural material. Their work in performance and film has an ethereal aesthetic that is transformative and often fleeting, based on current interests, the spirit of the times, and their responses to contemporary visual and material culture.
Photo: Courtesy of the artists
So Bey, 2019, Performance Vestiges, various materials. Installation view from Mothering Spaces exhibition at Mitchell Art Gallery, Edmonton. Courtesy of the artists
The Outpost, from the video Maiden Indian, 2018, Material Culture, broadcloth, various materials. Courtesy of the artists