OUR TOP PICKS SOBEY SHORTLIST - A LA WINSOR GALLERY

Here are our top picks for the Sobey Shortlis Prize. Wonder if we will see the same things as the judges? 

West Coast and the Yukon

Brendan Lee Satish Tang, Manga Ormolu Ver. 4.0-p, 2013, Ceramics and Mixed Media, 68.58 x 30.48 x 30.48 cm. Courtesy of the artist. 

Brendan Lee Satish Tang

Brendan Tang was born in Dublin, Ireland of Trinidadian parents and is a naturalized citizen of Canada. He earned his formal art education on both Canadian coasts and the American Midwest, where he learned to appreciate the ceramic medium. Tang has lectured at conferences and academic institutions across the country, and his professional practice has also taken him to India, Trinidad and Japan. He has been a resident artist at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (Helena, MT) and has participated in an international residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre (‘s-Hertogenbosch, NL).

Tang’s work has been showcased at galleries and in printed and online media. He has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, the Surrey Art Gallery in BC, and Art Labor in Shanghai, as well as being a recipient of the 2012 RBC Emerging Artist Award at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. He has been profiled by The Knowledge Network, and featured in printed publications including The National Post, Wired (UK and Italy), and ELLE (Canada). The broad appeal of his work is evident online, where he has received attention from prominent blogs around the globe, including Boing Boing, NotCot and Design Boom.

Prairies and the North

Brenda Draney, Hockey Boys, 2013, watercolour on paper, 22.86 x 27.94 cm. Photo: Sarah Fuller. 

Brenda Draney

Brenda Draney grew up in Slave Lake, Alberta. She completed an English degree at the University of Alberta before graduating with a BFA in Painting. She graduated with her Master’s degree from Emily Carr University of Art + Design and became the 11th winner of the annual RBC Canadian Painting Competition in 2009. Her work has been exhibited at the Power Plant in Toronto, the Toronto International Art Fair, and at MKG127 Gallery in Toronto. She took part in a show at Stride Gallery 2012. Brenda currently lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta.

Ontario

Kristiina Lahde, Metric System (white and blue), 2012, altered measuring tapes, 44.5 x 38.5 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

Kristiina Lahde

Kristiina Lahde received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1999. Lahde alters and re-formats familiar objects and materials such as telephone books, newspapers and envelopes. In 2011, her work was featured in La Biennale de Montréal. In 2012 she had her second solo exhibitions at MKG127 in Toronto, titled Beyond Measure. Lahde is currently participating in a residency at Open Studio, Toronto. In September 2013 Lahde’s work will be included in the exhibition More Than Two curated by Micah Lexier at The Power Plant, Toronto. In summer 2013 Lahde will be an Artist in Residence at the Anna Leonowens Gallery at NSCAD University, Halifax. Lahde is working toward solo exhibitions at Open Studio and The Koffler Gallery in Toronto and the Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax. In 2012 Lahde received a Canada Council Creation/Production Grant and her first Mid-Career grant from the Ontario Arts Council. A feature article on Lahde’s work by Kristin Campbell will be published in the spring 2013 issue of C Magazine. Lahde’s work is in the collection of the Canada Council Art Bank. Kristiina Lahde is represented by MKG127. 

Quebec

Peter Flemming, Canoe, 2000, kinetic installation, Variable dimensions. Photo: Isaac Appelbaum. 

Peter Flemming

Active for over a dozen years, Peter Flemming is a folk machinery artist, doing electronics handcraft ‘by ear’, tinkering intensively and intuitively in the studio. In recent work, the idea of resonance is explored via sound, electromagnetically activated materials, mechanical performers and makeshift amplification devices. Structured, but not scripted, these sound based installations are frameworks or schematics more than pre-determined finished pieces. They involved a large amount of on-site improvisation and vary significantly from implementation to implementation. Past work has included lazy machines, solar powered artwork and hypnotically repetitive automata.

Flemming has exhibited extensively internationally and been the recipient of numerous grants, awards and residencies. An occasional writer and curator, he has produced exhibition texts for other artists, presented papers, organized events and developed lecture series. He is an active board member of several local arts organizations. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Flemming currently lives and works in Montreal, where he teaches electronics for artists at Concordia University. 

Atlantic

Michael Pittman, Waking of Insects (island of light), 2009, mixed media on panel, 124.5 x 82 cm. Courtesy of the artist. 

Michael Pittman

Michael Pittman was born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland in 1977. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Memorial University (2001), and a research-led Master’s degree in painting from the Waterford Institute of Technology in Waterford, Ireland (2006). He works with multiple media to create images and objects that are often informed by a tangled relationship between psychology, folk belief and personal narrative.

Pittman’s work “plots the airy geography between worlds of sleep and wakefulness, experience and intuition, the rational and the mad. Linking terrains of varying substance, his paintings and sculpture are shifting maps, marking territory as elusive as a childhood memory or an irrational fear. They ply the recognizable with the uncanny.”  His “process of working parallels his conceptual concerns, allowing for the surfacing of nebulous or fleeting aspects of a place in between.”

Michael Pittman exhibits regularly at View Art Gallery in Victoria, BC and at the Leyton Gallery of Fine Art in St. John’s, NL. In 2012, The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery curated a significant solo exhibition of his artwork entitled Michael Pittman: Haunted Half comprised of over 5 years of the artists visual explorations.