THE PORTFOLIO PRIZE
Conceived by artists for artists, The Portfolio Prize aims to encourage the development of young artists through early career support. For artist founders Douglas Coupland, Graham Gillmore, Angela Grossmann, Attila Richard Lukacs, and Derek Root supporting the future generations of artists and their practices is essential to the continued growth of the region's arts community at large. The funds will provide young artists much needed support during a crucial point in their early careers.
"I think what makes this prize unique is that it is artists helping artists. So often artists are on the receiving end of entrepreneurial initiatives - this time we are holding the reigns, making the work, selling the work and giving it back to our own community, besides providing much needed funds to emerging artists it's also about empowerment". (Angela Grossmann)
The 2021 limited edition “Artist for Artist” portfolio consists of seven limited edition prints by Graham Gilmore, Angela Grossmann, Attila Richard Lukacs, Derek Root, Vikky Alexander, Rebecca Belmore and Dana Claxton and raised funds to award $30,000 to emerging/early career artists in the fall of 2022.
2021 PORTFOLIO PRIZE RECIPIENTS
The 85/5 Visual Arts Foundation is excited to announce the five recipients of this year’s Portfolio Prize, which will award $6,000 to five early career artists. The recipients are: Durrah Alsaif, Mathew Andreatta, Manuel Axel Strain, Rebecca Bair and Bracken Hanuse Corlett.
We want to thank all nominating non-profits, artists run centres and institutions and our final jurors Lisa Baldissera, Nya Lewis and Elliott Ramsey for being a crucial part in the selection process and congratulate all shortlisted artists and the final recipients!
Durrah Alsaif is an interdisciplinary artist, who received her B.F.A. in 2017 from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. She has exhibited her work at galleries nationally. Alsaif had a public artwork in Stadium/Chinatown Skytrain station in Vancouver, BC for her work Qimash as part of the Capture Photography Festival in collaboration with TransLink. Originally from Saudi Arabia but now living in Canada, Alsaif is interested in exploring the ever-changing and malleable conditions based on cultural and socio-political notions in her home country via the lens of a person living in North America. She explores these ideas with photography, performance, sculpture, and installation.
Mathew Andreatta is a multi-disciplinary Coast Salish artist of Qualicum First Nation and Musqueam Indian Band with Italian ancestry as well. Mathew was born and raised in Langley, BC, and spent Summers with his family on Vancouver Island in Qualicum visiting his Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles and cousins. His journey as an artist began in 2017, after having graduated from the University of British Columbia, with an active interest in the traditional and historical examples of visual language and expression, its techniques, and forms from his own and closely related First Nations artists. It wasn’t until 2019 after his first Tribal Canoe Journey when Mathew began taking his own practice more seriously as his need to express, connect, and understand more deeply his identity as an Indigenous person grew stronger and stronger. While Mathew didn’t undertake any formal mentorship or training, his passion for continuing to learn and grow his ability of visual storytelling as well as his own understanding of the practice is fueled by constant research and study of historical and contemporary pieces of art as well as their contexts and significance. He is a learning artist whose forms are meant to connect with those of his ancestors while attempting to speak to the generations of Indigenous Artists to come in order to help ensure these traditional and ancestral ways of expression and understanding are carried on.
Manuel Axel Strain is a 2-Spirit artist from the lands and waters of the xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Simpcw and Syilx peoples, based in the sacred region of their q̓ic̓əy̓(Katzie) and qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ (Kwantlen) relatives. Strains mother is Tracey Strain and father is Eric Strain, Tracey’s parents are Harold Eustache (from Chuchua) and Marie Louis (from nk̓maplqs), Eric’s Parents are Helen Point (from xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) and John Strain (from Ireland). Although they attended Emily Carr University of Art + Design they prioritize Indigenous epistemologies through the embodied knowledge of their mother, father, siblings, cousins, aunties, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents and ancestors. Creating artwork in collaboration with and reference to their relatives, their shared experiences become a source of agency that resonates through their work with performance, land, painting, sculpture, photography, video, sound and installation. Their artworks often envelop subjects in relation with ancestral and community ties, Indigeneity, labour, resource extraction, gender, Indigenous medicine and life forces. Strain often perceives their work to confront and undermine the imposed realities of colonialism. Proposing a new space beyond its oppressive systems of power. They have contributed work to the Vancouver Art Gallery, Surrey Art Gallery, the UBCO Fina gallery and were longlisted for 2022 Sobey Award.
Rebecca Bair is an interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver - the traditional and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples. Her research aims to explore the possibilities of specific representation and of identity through abstraction and non-figuration. Bair uses multimedia approaches and Sun collaborations to illustrate her exploration of identity and intersectionality, through the lens of her own experience as a Black Woman on Turtle Island. Her artistic, professional and educational goals revolve around common themes of celebrating Black plurality, as well as enabling interpersonal and intercultural care, and her work acts as a vehicle through which the complexities of history and identity can be uncovered, redefined and expressed.
Hanuse Corlett initially worked in theatre and performance before shifting to his current practice that fuses painting and drawing with digital-media, audio-visual performance, animation and narrative. He graduated from the En’owkin Centre for Indigenous Art and then went to school at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, while also receiving training in Northwest Coast art, design and carving from acclaimed Heiltsuk Artists Bradley Hunt and his sons Shawn and Dean. Working with and researching ancestral forms is central to his work as well as an openness to working with new media and tools. Much of his current process is collaborative, which includes working with youth, community and fellow working artists. He has exhibited, performed and screened his work locally and internationally and has received public art commissions in a number of cities/territories.
2021 PORTFOLIO PRIZE SHORTLIST
Through limited edition portfolio sales in 2015 featuring the work of Angela Grossmann, Attila Richard Lukacs, Derek Root, Graham Gillmore, Gordon Smith and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, the Foundation raised funds to support four unique artist prizes. In 2016, the Portfolio Prize awarded $21,000 of prize money to four early career artists.
The 2016 winners were:
Colleen Brown - Emerging Artist Award
Derya Akay - Emerging Artist Award
Del Hillier - BFA Prize
Gabi Dao - BFA Distinction
Colleen Brown and Derya Akay, will also be showcased in the new Vancouver Triennale ‘Ambivalent Pleasures: Vancouver Special’ which will be on exhibit from December until April at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Foundation is pleased this Triennale will recognize Brown and Akay and proudly support their careers as they continue to develop.
The foundation recognizes that artistic practice today is multifarious and early career support and funding is rare. The Foundation continues to assist in early career support, aiming to providing funding again in the coming years.
For information about the foundation, its mandate and the prizes please contact :
portfolioprize@gmail.com