Now in its fifth year, the Scotiabank Photography Award was created to raise the international profile of Canada’s leading photographic artists and is Canada’s largest annual peer-reviewed celebration of excellence in Canadian contemporary photography.
“The Scotiabank Photography Award is designed to be an annual search for excellence,” said Edward Burtynsky, Chair of the Scotiabank Photography Award jury and internationally renowned Canadian photo artist. “The three artists on the 2015 shortlist each have unique and distinctive bodies of work that show true excellence in Canadian contemporary photography. We look forward to announcing the winner of this year’s award on May 6.”
The Scotiabank Photography Award was founded by Edward Burtynsky and Jane Nokes, Scotiabank’s Director of Arts, Culture, & Heritage and Executive Director of the Scotiabank Photography Award. The Award is designed to provide support to a mid-career artist as he or she reaches for the next level of national and international recognition.
The winner of Scotiabank Photography Award 2015 is: Angela Grauerholz
2015 SPA jury member statement
The photographs of Angela Grauerholz are a significant contribution to the contemporary history of the medium. Her explorations of the materiality and contexts of images have renewed our aesthetic and cultural understanding of photographs. Utilizing genres that includes vernacular photographs as well as the function of the archive, Grauerholz has approached the value that photographs retain to memory through a uniquely personal and philosophical insight. The work of Angela Grauerholz is evocative and thoughtful. The strange beauty of her photographs invite the viewer to reflect on the depth of meaning that the ubiquitous presence of photographs may convey. – Robert Bean
The 2015 Scotiabank Photography Award Shortlist Finalists are:
Rafael Goldchain
Rafael Goldchain, Elvis Taxi, Limon, Costa Rica, 1986
Rafael Goldchain was born in 1953 of Polish-Jewish heritage in Santiago, Chile and was educated in Jerusalem, Israel before moving to Toronto. He photographed in México and Central America in the 1980s and 1990s. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Goldchain moved into the studio to stage a series of self-portraits of himself as his ancestors, many of whom were lost in the Holocaust, or displaced over South and Central America in the early 20th century. Goldchain’s life and work are the subject of a documentary film entitled “Beautifully Broken: The Life and Times of Rafael Goldchain.”
Angela Grauerholz
Angela Grauerholz, Hotel, 1989
Angela Grauerholz was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1952, and has lived and worked in Montreal since 1976. A graduate of the Kunstschule Alsterdamm, Hamburg, in graphic design, she holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts (photography) from Concordia University, Montreal. In 1980, she was a co-founder of ARTEXTE, centre d’information en art contemporain, still today an important archive for Canadian art. In 2010, the National Gallery of Canada in collaboration with the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP) mounted a major exhibition of her work.
Isabelle Hayeur
Isabelle Hayer, Turbulences o1, 2011
Isabelle Hayer was born in Montreal in 1969, Isabelle Hayeur is a digital image artist recognized for her large-sized photographic montages, videos, and site-specific installations, in which she highlights urban blights and sprawl, among a number of industrial society’s pitfalls. Her works are to be found in some twenty collections, including those of the National Gallery of Canada, the Fonds national d’art contemporain in Paris, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.
The winner of the Scotiabank Photography Award receives a cash prize of $50,000 and a book of their work to be published and distributed worldwide by Steidl of Germany, the renowned art photography publisher. In addition, the winner’s art will be the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Ryerson Image Centre, as part of next year’s Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. The two shortlisted artists receive cash prizes of $10,000 each.
The 2014 winner Mark Ruwedel will have his Scotiabank Photography Award book launch and exhibition at the Ryerson Image Centre, from April 29 to June 28, 2015. His show, a Primary Exhibition of 2015 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, will be open to the public free of charge for the month of May.
The 2015 Scotiabank Photography Award winner will be announced on May 6, 2015 at the Ryerson Image Centre. For more information about the prize please visit www.scotiabankphotoaward.com.