Salt Spring National Art Prize Announces Winners

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Luther Konadu

Winnipeg artist Luther Konadu has been awarded the top $20,000 award from the Salt Spring National Art Prize for his work, Figure as Index.

The prize recognizes artists whose practices demonstrate originality, quality, integrity and creativity, leading to significant work with visual impact and depth of meaning. 

He receives $15,000 in prize money and an artist residency on Salt Spring Island valued at $5,000.

Ten awards totalling $39,000 were presented Saturday.

Jurors' choice awards of $3,000 each went to Kaley Flowers, of Toronto; Audie Murray, of Victoria, and Skawennati, of Montreal. 

People's choice awards went to Tony Luciano, of Durham, Ont.; Steven Volpe, of Orangeville, Ont.; and Tim Alfred, of Port Hardy, BC.

The youth category was won by Erika Dueck, of St. Pierre, Man.

An award of $2,000 for a Salt Spring Island artist went to Carol Narod.

Atefeh Baradaran won the $1,000 Salt Spring Painters Guild Award.

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Luther Konadu, "Figure as Index" (triptych detail), no date

C-print, 40' × 30"

Konadu graduated recently from the School of Art at the University of Manitoba.

His Figure as Index is an extract of an ongoing series on portraiture.

“It's a photo scanned of different segments of a printed photograph taped up together," he said. "So you see the seams of the photo's surface, as well as a reflection of me taking the initial photo.

“I think how we see others through images has a very strong weight on what we think of them and that can be totalizing. In some instances, that weight can be hard to shake off even after we've encountered them out in the world. This is especially so in a time where we are surrounded by so many images.”   

Juror David Balzer, a former editor of Canadian Art, said Konadu's "clever and confrontational" work demonstrates an engaging curiosity.

The other jurors were Victoria artist Sandra Meigs and Vancouver curator cheyanne turions. 

Winning works will be displayed at the Victoria Arts Council from Jan. 11 to Feb. 22 and can also be viewed at https://saltspringartprize.ca/congratulations-to-the-ssnap-2019-2020-award-winners/. 

Source: Salt Spring National Arts Prize