Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts

The Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts are Canada’s foremost awards for excellence in these artistic disciplines. Each laureate receives $25,000 and a bronze medallion.

Carol Wainio, painter: For over 30 years, Carol Wainio has occupied a singular place in Canadian painting. Her painterly canvases layer diverse references to explore, in ways both cerebral and poetic, the nuances of history, narrative, representation and the changing nature of human experience. Wainio has exhibited widely including solo and group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and internationally at the Stedelijk Musiem, the Venice Biennale, the Galeria Comunale d’Arte Moderna in Bologna as well as the United States and China. Her paintings are represented in major collections, including the NGC, Musée des beaux-arts de Montreal, AGO and the Glenbow Museum. Recipient of numerous awards, she has taught at several universities including NSCAD, the University of Western Ontario, Concordia and the University of Ottawa.

OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION AWARD - Brydon Smith, curator: For over 30 years, visionary Brydon Smith built a collection of international contemporary art with ambition, clarity and foresight. At his debut, as assistant curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario (1964-67), he exhibited and purchased then-radical work by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Les Levine and Robert Rauschenberg — introducing Toronto to the latest in American art. His greatest contributions took place at the National Gallery of Canada, where he worked as Curator of Contemporary and Modern Art (1967-99), Chief Curator, Deputy Director (1979-94), and, Curator of Modern Art until 1999. His early, groundbreaking exhibitions included, Dan Flavin, James Rosenquist and Donald Judd. He acquired nearly 100 works by such iconic modern artists as Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, and, most controversially, Barnett Newman’s Voice of Fire. He played a key role in managing the mammoth project to build the new National Gallery, including the technical and financial aspects, and the installation of the national collection in the new gallery spaces.

Jayce Salloum, media artist: Jayce Salloum’s practice exists within and between the personal, daily, local and the trans-national. Intimate and subjective, his work critically asserts itself in the perception of social manifestations and political realities. For over three decades, Salloum has worked in installation, photography, drawing, performance, text and video, and has also curated exhibitions, conducted workshops, and coordinated a vast array of cultural projects. His recent work has taken place in Afghanistan, China, Lebanon, Palestine, Australia, France, Kamloops, Galápagos Islands and other sites in the Americas. Salloum has exhibited at a wide range of venues, from the smallest storefronts and community centres in his Downtown Eastside Vancouver neighbourhood to major institutions such as the Musée du Louvre, Paris. His texts/works have been featured in many publications and a monograph on his work, Jayce Salloum: history of the present, was published in 2009. He is represented by MKG127 gallery, Toronto.

Angela Grauerholz, photographer/visual artist: Angela Grauerholz fascinates with her coherence, her concept of memory and her cinematographic vision of photography. Over the past 30 years, her photography has been acclaimed, exhibited and collected in Canada and abroad, including at the Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster and the Art Museum of the University of Houston. She has been featured in important international events such as documenta IX in Kassel, Germany, and the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. In 2009, VOX, the centre for the contemporary image, launched her web work www.atworkandplay.ca. In 2010 the National Gallery of Canada presented a retrospective of her work. She received the prestigious Paul-Émile-Borduas Prize from Quebec in 2006.

Raymond Gervais, performance and installation artist: For more than 40 years, Raymond Gervais has had a major influence on the contemporary art scene. Associated with sound art and conceptual art, his work is a visual experience within the realms of the aural imagination. Since the 1970s, Raymond Gervais has been interested in new music and composing works using turntables, texts, photographs and various objects. His participation in the Canadian tours of the exhibitions Soundtracks/replay and Trafic reaffirmed the importance of his approach in conceptual art. His reflection is all-encompassing: he has written about art and music from the beginning, notably for Parachute magazine, and from 1980 to 1993 he worked as a host and researcher for Radio Canada music programs. His work has been shown in Canada, Europe and the United States and written about in numerous publications, magazines and books, including Puisqu’à toute fin correspond (2007). In 2011-2012, the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery and the Vox centre presented a comprehensive retrospective on Raymond Gervais, 3x1. In 2012, he presented his new installations on Samuel Beckett and Claude Debussy in Paris and Brussels. In 2010, he received Quebec’s prestigious Ozias-Leduc Prize. Raymond Gervais lives and works in Montréal.

Max Dean, multidisciplinary visual artist: For more than 40 years, Max Dean has experimented with new media and technologies to explore the relationship between audience and art, and to test his own physical and psychological boundaries. His work has been featured in over 20 solo and group exhibitions in major galleries across Canada and internationally, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels) and The Fifth Element (Kunsthall Dusseldorf). He participated at the Venice Biennale (1999, 2001) and was artist-in-residence at the National Museum of Science and Technology (1985-86). His many honours include the Jean Chalmers National Visual Arts Award (1997) and the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (2005). He taught for several years with University of Ottawa and York University (Toronto), and is currently teaching at Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts.

SAIDYE BRONFMAN AWARD - Sandra Brownlee, weaver/notebook keeper: Since the 1970s, Sandra Brownlee has been creating intimate and improvisational works – tactile records of a lifelong journey that hold meaning for us all. She has exhibited extensively in Canada and the United States including solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Textile Museum of Canada, the Mary E. Black Gallery (Halifax), the Liao Collection (Philadelphia), and the Meyerhoff Gallery at the Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore). Her work is included in a large group exhibition of fibre art organized by the Muskegon Museum of Art in Muskegon (Michigan), which is touring through 2014 and in a solo show opening in May 2014 at the David Kaye Gallery (Toronto). Her numerous grants and awards include a Canada Council ‘B’ Grant, an Ontario Arts Council Grant, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts Award, a Leeway Foundation Grant for Excellence in Fibre Art and she was a finalist in the 2012 Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia’s Masterwork Award Competition.

Kim Adams, sculptor: For over 30 years, Kim Adams’s fantastical worlds, created from car parts, toys and model kits, playfully invite viewers to reflect on issues of street subculture, community and housing, consumerism and waste. One of Canada’s leading contemporary sculptors, he has been the subject of major survey exhibitions at the Musée d’art contemporain of Montréal, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Oakville Galleries, Museum London, Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Power Plant Contemporary Art at Harbourfront. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad, including Galerie Stadtpark (Krems, Austria), Shedhalle (Zurich, Switzerland), Sydney Biennale (Australia), Sculpture Projects (Muenster, Germany), Centraal Museum (Utrecht, Netherlands), Jeu de Paume (Paris), and the recent Oh, Canada exhibition at Mass MOCCA (North Adams, Massachusetts), among many others. His work can be found in many collections, including the Vancouver Art Gallery and National Gallery of Canada, and he has been recognized with the Gershon Iskowitz Award (2012) and the Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2013).

Mr. Simon Brault, Vice-Chair of the Canada Council for the Arts, also delivered a speech on this occasion.

The Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts are awarded annually to visual and media artists for distinguished career achievement in visual arts, architecture, independent film and video, or audio and new media. The awards also include the Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence in the fine crafts, as well as a prize for outstanding contributions to the visual and/or media arts in a volunteer or professional capacity.

"You are a dynamic, innovative group of artists and curators, representative of the great diversity of visual and media arts in Canada today," said the Governor General. "Each of you is being recognized for achievements made over many years, sometimes at considerable personal sacrifice. You have furthered art-making and the presentation of art in your respective disciplines. You have inspired wonder in countless Canadians and audiences from around the world. You have mentored new generations of artists and interpreters in your communities and elsewhere. Tonight, we thank you for your dedication to developing and sharing an authentic artistic vision that has enriched our country and the world at large."

Official photo of Their Excellencies with the laureates of the 2014 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.