BMO 1st ART | MOCCA
BMO 1st Art! celebrates the best of Canada’s recent visual arts graduates, from coast to coast. The winners, who demonstrate the excellence and promise of the newest generation of artists, gathered at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) for opening reception of their show.
Dawn Cain, the curator at BMO financial group, who helped to launch BMO 1st Art! show, spoke about the importance of supporting emerging artists and congratulated the winners on stage. The national and 12 regional winners were selected from 272 entries, the highest number submitted since the competition's inception.
Samuel de Lange, PVTREFACTIO VI (Black Sun), 2014, Chromogenic print, 47 x 36 in.
Samuel de Lange, the national winner and the recipient of $10,000, was hard to miss. The tall, bearded graduate, was certainly not timid to speak of his work and relish in his success. De Lange said that his piece was “not a photograph in the traditional sense.” Instead, he explains that "it is a large-scale monochromatic abstract print made using an expired stock of peel-apart Polaroid film. Because the film stock was so old, the negative continually developed. When scanned at a high resolution and enlarged, the images revealed minute traces of growth and decay that spoke to a not-so-distant photographic history.” The piece that won is part of an ongoing series of about 20 images, and he said he hopes the attention from winning will open up opportunities to exhibit more works from the series.
Emmanuel Osahor, The Conundrum, 2014, Oil on canvas, 66 x 72 in.
However, it was the work of the University of Alberta graduate, Emmanuel Osahor that particularly stood out. The Nigerian-born artist lit up when I asked him if he was inspired by the work of Peter Doig, to which he jubilantly explained yes and proceeded to thank me for such an acclaim. He explained that after having a creative block and facing visa expiration, it was only when he saw Doig's exhibition at the Museé des Beaux Arts in Montreal that he began to feel inspired. Like Doig, Osahor uses bright colours on a large-scale canvas to depict a sense of blurred identity of the outlined figures. Through the use of the complimentary colours, blue and orange, The Conondrum depicts an impossible stillness of Osahor's Nigerian life - that now occurs in swift visits - and gives the emotionally-charged, personal piece the perception of balance.
See the 13 winning works at the 1st Art! Exhibition, October 2 – 26, 2014, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, 952 Queen Street West. Gallery hours: Tues–Sun 11 – 6 p.m.
