Riaz Mehmood (photo by Nadia Kurd)
Riaz Mehmood has won the $15,000 Eldon + Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Arts Prize for a work in his recent exhibition at the Art Gallery of Alberta.
The runners up were Madeline LeBlanc and Heather Shillinglaw, who each receive $5,000.
The prize was among four Edmonton Arts Prizes announced Wednesday for music, visual art, film and literature, with a total value of $100,000.
Mehmood, nominated by the Art Gallery of Alberta, is a multidisciplinary artist. Ishq/Unconditional Love was a key work in his solo exhibition, Ghazal Songs for Home, curated by Danielle Siemens. His ancestral home is a small village located between Afghanistan and Pakistan. He immigrated to Canada in 2000.
LeBlanc, nominated by The Works International Visual Arts Society, creates inclusive spaces and highlights issues of accessibility. Her nominated series, Tween, explored vulnerability with a calming installation in a small pocket of urban nature.
Heather Shillinglaw, nominated by the Alberta Craft Council, is an Indigenous artist whose nominated work is a mixed media panel ᑮᓯᑌᐳᐃᐧᐣ ᓵᑳᐦᐃᑲᐣ kîsitêpowin sâkâhikan cooking lake. It was part of her exhibition last year at the council.
The long list for the visual art prize also included Cheyenne Rain LeGrande, nominated by the Mitchell Art Gallery; Gabriel Esteban Molina, nominated by Latitude 53; and Laura Ouimet, nominated by the University of Alberta Botanic Gardens.
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Source: Edmonton Arts Council