Three artists – Madeline LeBlanc, Riaz Mehmood and Heather Shillinglaw – are on the short list for the Eldon and Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Arts Prize.
The prize – one of four Edmonton Arts Prizes in different arts disciplines – is awarded by the City of Edmonton.
The winner of each award takes home $15,000, while the two runners up each receive $5,000. The winner will be announced in May.
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.
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.
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.
The other three arts prizes are the City of Edmonton Music Prize, the Robert Kroetsch – City of Edmonton Book Prize and the City of Edmonton Film Prize.
Source: Edmonton Arts Council