Luther Konadu, "Figure as Index" (triptych), no date
C-prints, 27" × 19", 40' × 30", 20" × 64"
Luther Konadu, from the University of Manitoba, is the winner of the BMO 1st Art! competition, which recognizes visual arts excellence among undergraduate artists across Canada.
He submitted C-prints of family and friends, part of an ongoing documentary project that combats history’s negative depiction of the black body.
Western regional winners are Preston Pavlis, from MacEwan University in Edmonton, Cheyenne Rain LeGrande, from Vancouver's Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Jimuel Belarmino, from the University of Regina, and Marie-France Hollier, from the University of Manitoba.
Northern winners are Kaleigh Rose Tagak, from the Nunavut Arctic College, and Robyn McLeod, from the Yukon School of Visual Arts
The invitational competition includes cash awards of $15,000 to one national winner and $7,500 to 12 regional winners.
The jurors selected the works from a pool of 291 submissions. All winning pieces will be exhibited from Nov. 21 to Dec. 16 at Toronto's Museum of Contemporary Art.
Some 110 undergraduate student art programs were invited to select three graduating students from each studio specialty to submit recent work.
This year, for the first time, submissions included time-based media such as video, film, slide, audio and computer technologies, in addition to the previously accepted drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, sculpture, glass, ceramics, textiles, mixed media and installation works.
Other regional winners are:
- Clara Patterson, Mount Allison University in New Brunswick
- Emily Hayes, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland
- Séamus Gallagher, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University
- Christopher Dela Cruz, University of Toronto at Scarborough
- Hanna Matheson, Holland College in Prince Edward Island
- Charline Dally, Université du Québec à Montréal
The selection committee was Marie-Eve Beaupré, curator of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal; cheyanne turions, curator of SFU Galleries; Sarah Robayo Sheridan, curator, of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, and Adriana Kuiper, an artist and associate professor at Mount Allison University.
To view the winning pieces, please visit: https://1stArt.bmo.com.
Source: BMO Financial Group