The William and Meredith Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists
The William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists (formerly Charles Pachter) consist of three awards of $10,000 each (formerly $5,000 each), to support young emerging visual artists whose practice shows potential and is deemed to have the determination and talent to contribute to the legacy of art in Canada.
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Representatives of public and private galleries, fine arts training institutions currently or previously attended by the nominees (note that undergraduate students are ineligible), and artist-run-centres, are invited to submit their nominations. Nominees are then asked to upload their submission materials.
2024 call for nominations
Nomination deadline: May 6th, 2024.
Nominees will be asked to upload their submission materials by June 3rd, 2024.
Process
Representatives from qualified institutions are invited to send a letter of nomination to the Foundation at director@rjhf.com with the subject line “Saunderson Prize Nomination (Candidate Name)” by May 6th 2024 at the latest.
An institution may only nominate one candidate per year.
Nominations must include:
A letter of nomination on behalf of the nominating institution;
The nominator’s title at the institution;
The nominator’s phone number;
The candidate’s current city of residence and/or work;
The candidate’s email address and phone number;
A brief bio of the artist and/or a web link where their bio may be found
Criteria
The prizes are awarded each year and a person may receive the award only once.
Eligible categories in the visual arts include painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, three-dimensional installations and multi-media installations.
Candidates are identified on the basis of the jury’s estimation that they have the determination and talent to contribute to the legacy of art in Canada.
Candidates must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada under 30 years of age as of December 31 of the current year.
The candidate must be an emerging professional artist (3 to 7 years of practice) whose body of work incorporates specialized training (not necessarily gained at an academic institution), a public presence and peer recognition.
The artist must demonstrate that their work has been featured in or acquired by at least 2 curated shows or 2 public collections in Canada in the last 5 years.
Undergraduate and college students are not eligible for nomination.
Candidate submissions
Once they are nominated, candidates will be invited by the Foundation to upload the following documents to SlideRoom:
10-15 digital images/videos of completed work, at least 8 of which must be self-initiated (meaning: they cannot be projects completed in the context of training at an artistic training institution);
An artistic CV highlighting their exhibition history, education, publications, acquisitions, arts-related employment, grants received, awards received, commissions, residency programs, and any other relevant professional experience as an artist;
Links to an artist website and/or social media (optional);
1-5 installation images from exhibitions featuring their work;
Letter of recommendation (optional);
An artist statement (300-800 words);
A short bio (300-500 words).
Submissions may be in English or French.
A jury of one mid-career curator and one mid-career artist from living in different areas of Canada will review portfolios and propose three winners. We anticipate that results of the process will be communicated in the summer of 2024.
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2023
Maggy Hamel-Metsos (she/her)
Photo: William Bobby Sabourin
Working primarily in sculpture, Maggy Hamel-Metsos’s practice is a negotiation between the singular (personal) and the common (cultural). Through objects, images and text, she establishes semantic connections between the personal, the mythological and the historical. She is interested in the mechanisms of reduction, expansion and abstraction present in language and while making use of words in her own work, she incorporates those strategies in her material propositions as well.
Hamel-Metsos’s work has been exhibited and is in private collections in Canada, Germany, and the USA. Caretakers, her debut exhibition at the Parc Offsite gallery in Montreal, took place in 2021 and was followed up by a second solo show titled Whole Wide World. Recent exhibitions include Life’s Marching Band at Pumice Raft in Toronto and My Whole World at Baader-Meinhof in Omaha. She is the 2021 Québec recipient of the BMO 1st Art! Prize and is a laureate of Fonderie Darling’s 2023-2026 Montreal Studio Program.
Find Maggy on Instagram at @tungstenwarshields
House of Cards, 2022, hand polished steel cards, variable dimensions, photo credit: Parker Kay
Shaya Ishaq (she/her)
Photo: Brandon Brookbank
Shaya Ishaq is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and designer interested in craft, diaspora, design anthropology, and temporality.
Face jug no.2, 2022, porcelain clay and plaster. Photo Credit: Roya Del Sol
“Devoted to materiality, I often work with textiles and clay to create wearable art, jewelry, and immersive installations that embrace the emergent possibilities of spatial design. Through the meditative processes of weaving, felting, and handmade ceramics, I explore the nuances of my positionality and the liminality of rites of passage which often leads to sculptural textile and ceramic works. From a young age, creative expression was my way to make a mark, share what was inside me or my perception of the world. If it were not for the teachers and mentors I met along the way who fostered this impulse, I don’t know where I would be today. I am particularly grateful for Toshiko MacAdam, Tanya Aguiñiga, Surabhi Ghosh, and Rory MacDonald for their impact in my journey thus far. I also have immense gratitude for my extended community network that has supported and affirmed me along my path. I would also like to extend gratitude to my incredible matrilineage of Nubi and Lugbara weavers who I feel infinitely connected to in my practice as a weaver and material based artist.”
Find Shaya at www.shayaishaq.com and on Instagram at @shyshaya
Lan “Florence” Yee (they/them)
Photo: Jordan Dawson
Lan “Florence” Yee is a visual artist and self-proclaimed serial collaborator based in Tkaronto/Toronto and Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal.
SEEKING—Ways to look less disposable, print on wood and metal armature, installed as part of CAFKA.23 in Riverside Park, 2023. Photo by Meg Ross.
“I collect text in underappreciated places and ferment it until it is too suspicious to ignore (…). As I sought answers to mouldy questions throughout the years, local and global histories complicated my tenuous relationship to living in Quebec. I was only able to learn about the migratory experiences of my parents and grandparents through university history classes and Wikipedia. This unfortunate irony became the subject and tone of my early work, centered on diasporic anxieties, migrant silence, and assimilationist imperatives.”
“I am indebted to my professors at Dawson College, Concordia University, and OCAD U, who guided me towards alternative ways of doing and being, namely Peter Morin, Alice Ming Wai Jim, Heather Igloliorte, Louise Arsenault, Mary Sui-Yee Wong, and Nadia Myre. Their belief in building better worlds has likewise encouraged me to seek more sustainable ecosystems in art and collectivity.”
Find Lan at www.Lanflorenceyee.com and on Instagram at @lan.florence.yee
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2023
Michelle Jacques, Head of Exhibitions and Collections and Chief Curator, Remai Modern, and winner of the 2022 Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence
Hajra Waheed, multidisciplinary artist and winner of the 2022 Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Visual Arts
