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One of 2 Concordia grads could win the $50K Sobey Art Award

Jacynthe Carrier and Bridget Moser are shortlisted for one of Canada’s most important juried prizes
June 6, 2017
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By Andy Murdoch


"One Hungry Eye," 2016, by Bridget Moser


Two Concordia graduates — Jacynthe Carrier (MFA 13) and Bridget Moser (BFA 09) — are among the five artists shortlisted for a very distinguished Canadian honour: the Sobey Art Award.

The $50,000 prize is conferred annually to an established artist aged 40 or under. This year’s shortlist also includes, by geographical region: Ursula Johnson (Atlantic), Divya Mehra (Prairies and North) and Raymond Boisjoly (West Coast and Yukon).

Since its inception in 2002, more than 30 Concordians have been longlisted for the Sobey, and five have taken it home — Abbas Akhavan (2015), Nadia Myre (2014), Raphaëlle de Groot (2012), Daniel Barrow (2010) and Michel de Broin (2007).

On hearing this week's news, Moser explained that, "It was a huge surprise to make the 2017 shortlist because the Ontario longlist was really very exceptional. Even receiving the longlist nomination was very surprising! It means a lot to me."

Carrier concurred. "I take this nomination with pride, but also with humility," she said. "I know and very much respect the work of my colleagues on the Quebec longlist."

 

Jacynthe Carrier | photo courtesy of the artist Jacynthe Carrier | Photo courtesy of the artist


Bridget Moser is a performance and video artist whose work is suspended between prop comedy, experimental theatre, performance art, absurd literature, existential anxiety and intuitive dance. Or, as she describes it: "Essentially yelling at objects and using them incorrectly in front of a small audience."

A resident artist at The Banff Centre and the Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como, Italy, and a 2016 Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Prize finalist, Moser was also selected for the William and Meredith Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists in 2017. She has presented projects throughout the US and Europe.

"Jake Moore, the director of the FOFA Gallery while I was in school, was actually the first person to tell me unequivocally to my face that I was definitely an artist," Moser said of her time at Concordia.

"As a student, that was hugely influential to me, especially because she was an artist, and also an unbelievably generous and cool person. That one statement probably kept me going through a lot of uncertainty."

Jacynthe Carrier explores the different relationships the body has with the environment, and ways of conceptualizing and appropriating the land.

Using photography and video, she produces different types of interventions in the landscape, where bodies and objects are assembled and staged in performative situations.

"My years in Concordia's MFA program were very fertile and significant in the development of my practice," Carrier said.

"The school’s incredible facilities, the richness and generosity of the photography department and its professors, and finally, the inspiring contact of my colleagues, all made a unique context for creation."

In 2013, Carrier was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award. She was a recipient of the city of Montreal’s Pierre-Ayot Award in 2012 and the Prix Videre Création in 2015.

“#1” from the series Themselves, 2013, by Jacynthe Carrier “#1” from the series Themselves, 2013, by Jacynthe Carrier


Four Concordia alumni made the 2017 longlist: Dan Brault (BFA 03) and Kim Waldron (MFA 13) joined Carrier and Moser.

The Sobey Art Award is jointly administered by the National Gallery of Canada and the Sobey Art Foundation. In addition to the $50,000 winning prize, shortlisted candidates receive $10,000 and the remaining longlisted individuals each receive $500.

Work by the five shortlisted artists will be exhibited at the Art Museum of the University of Toronto from October 24 to December 9, 2017. The winner of the 2017 Sobey Art Award will be announced at a gala event on October 25.  


Find out more about Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts.



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