Inuit artist, Quebec filmmaker win Governor General's Awards for visual arts

A Cape Dorset artist whose sculptures and images are icons in Canada and one of Quebec's leading documentary filmmakers are among this year's winners of the Governor General's Awards in visual and media arts.

Kenojuak Ashevak, who created images such as Enchanted Owl, and Serge Guigère, the filmmaker behind Driven by Dreams (À force des rêves), were announced as winners of the $25,000 award in Montreal on Tuesday.

Kenojuak Ashevak is one of the most acclaimed Inuit artists to emerge from Cape Dorset, Nunavut.
(Martin Lipman/Canada Council for the Arts)

Other winners of the honour for achievement in the arts are Montreal sculptor Michel Goulet, Dene painter Alex Janvier and multidisciplinarian artists Tanya Mars of Toronto and Eric Metcalfe of Victoria.

Jeweller Chantal Gilbert, who has penetrated the global market as an artistic knife maker, will get the Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence in the fine crafts.

Shirley Thomson, a director of the Canada Council for the Arts from 1998 to 2002, receives the award for outstanding contribution to the arts.

Each winner will receive $25,000 and be presented with their awards by Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean at a ceremony in Ottawa on Friday.

Mars is involved in performance art, sculpture and video and has been a mentor to young artists over the last 30 years.

"It's very much a surprise because I am a performance artist first and foremost and I would say that visual arts is on the margins of the arts in terms of 'celebrity' in all cultures and performance art is on the margin of that," Mars told CBC News after the award announcement.

"So to think that I could have a sustained practice as a performance artist all these years and for that to be given a Governor General's Award is pretty phenomenal and exciting."

Her works include In Pursuit of Happiness, which has toured Canada and Hot, a performance piece that reflects on middle age. She also edited art magazine Parallelogramme from 1976 to 1989 and is co-editor of Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women.

Many of Ashevak's drawings, prints and sculptures are familiar to Canadians, because they've been on a series of stamps or permeated popular culture on cards and prints. Among her most famous works are The Owl and The World Around Me.

Ashevak's simple, powerful images have made her one Cape Dorset's most acclaimed artists.

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Source:CBC top stories