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Aboriginal artist Belmore among winners ofGovernor General's visual arts awards

By: Nelson Wyatt, The Canadian Press

Tuesday, Mar. 12, 2013 at 2:35 PM | Comments: 0

Anishinaabe artist Rebecca Belmore poses for a photo in the undated handout image. Winnipeg-based artist Rebecca Belmore is among the recipients of this year's Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Canada Council for the Arts, Martin Lipman

MONTREAL - An aboriginal artist whose work contains searing commentary on the treatment of Canada's First Nations people was among the recipients on Tuesday of this year's Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.

Anishinaabe artist Rebecca Belmore, who is based in Winnipeg, is considered one of Canada's foremost contemporary artists for her use of such mediums as sculpture, performance and video to explore identity and the legacy of colonialism.

And Belmore, who is working on an environmentally based piece that will debut in Sudbury, Ont., in May, says she is encouraged by the prospects for social commentary by the emerging new generation of artists in today's politically charged environment.

"I was quite taken with the Idle No More movement and previous to that, the Occupy movement," she said in an interview after the awards announcement.

"I'm kind of excited about the potential for younger artists to engage in political kind of action and making artwork that is politically kind of motivated."

Gov. Gen. David Johnston will present the awards, which consist of $25,000 and a medallion, in a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on March 20.

The other winners announced Tuesday in Montreal include Quebec painter Marcel Barbeau, filmmaker William MacGillivray of Nova Scotia, composer Gordon Monahan and sculptor Colette Whiten, both of Ontario.

Calgary-based artist Greg Payce received the Saidye Bronfman Award.

Montrealer Chantal Pontbriand received an outstanding contribution award for her more than 30 years of work as a curator and art critic.

The Governor General's Award recognizes career achievement by Canadians in the visual and media arts as well as outstanding contributions in these fields.

Belmore has never been one to shy away from controversial subjects in her 25-year career as a multidisciplinary artist.

Her pieces have drawn inspiration from such things as the shocking disappearances of aboriginal women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the exploitation of aboriginals as Canada was colonized, and the 1990 Oka land claims crisis.

In the Oka-based piece, titled "Ayum-ee-aawach Oomama-mowan: Speaking to Their Mother," she created a gigantic megaphone that was taken into numerous First Nations communities where it was actually used by residents to articulate their feelings.

She also created "Victorious" shortly after Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in 2008 for the treatment of aboriginals in Canada's residential schools. In it, she created a figure representing Queen Victoria, the monarch of that era, out of honey and recycled newspapers.

Asked what advice she would give emerging artists when tackling such concepts, she said she would tell them not to just see the work in terms of a political statement but more in terms of a personal interest.

"Artists have the ability and the flexibility and the freedom to articulate and respond to different issues that are of concern to them," said Belmore, who gets a lot of her ideas from talking to First Nations people about their concerns.

Belmore says she developed her skill in the artist-run centre system in Canada and owed a lot to public funding and the Canada Council. While she creates in a variety of mediums, performance is still her favourite.

"My practice as a performance artist is the strength of my work and kind of drives the other ways in which I work," she said.

Belmore wasn't the only activist artist among the winners.

Barbeau, 88, was one of the signatories in 1948 of the historic Refus global, which challenged the strictures of Quebec society and is considered the forerunner of the province's Quiet Revolution which modernized the province.

The officer of the Order of Canada said the job of the artist then and now is to keep changing the way people see and create art. In the era of the Rufus global, for instance, the Roman Catholic Church, which dominated Quebec, had a more restrictive view on what was depicted in art.

Barbeau encouraged young artists to "be yourself."

"Art is something that reflects your mind, the way you're thinking, " he said. "If your mind is fresh and free, your art will be free too."

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