Announcing the Winners of the William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists
September 11, 2024
Dear artists and supporters,
It is with great pleasure that we announce the laureates of our William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists: Séamus Gallagher (left), Laurena Finéus (centre) and Joyce Joumaa (right).
Read on to learn about the program and these exceptional young artists’ works!
About the program
The William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists consist of three awards of $10,000 each (formerly $5,000) to support young emerging visual artists whose practice shows potential and is deemed to have the determination and talent to contribute to the legacy of art in Canada. This is the tenth edition of the Prizes, and is fittingly the first year with the updated prize value.
Selection process
Finéus, Gallagher and Joumaa were selected from a pool of 28 eligible candidates nominated by artist-run-centres, galleries, and fine arts professionals from all over Canada.
Portfolios were evaluated by Bridget Moser (Artist, 2023 laureate of The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Visual Arts and 2015 laureate of a Saunderson Prize) and John G. Hampton (Executive Director and CEO of the MacKenzie Art Gallery and 2016 laureate of The Hnatyshyn Foundation – TD Bank Group Award for Emerging Curator of Contemporary Canadian Art), whom we thank for their careful work.
LAURENA FINÉUS
Laurena Finéus is a Haitian-Canadian interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She was born and raised in Gatineau and Ottawa. Her work focuses on representations of black geographies, maroon history, and migration through an array of painterly imagined landscapes.
Portrait of Laurena Finéus (2021) by Geghani Panosian.
“In my works, I depict ‘Zones of refuge’ (Freedom as Marronage, Neil Roberts, 2015) which most accurately describe maroons' regions of existence. This has prompted me to explore depictions of mountain ranges, swamps, forests, and arid plains - all landscapes found within Quilombo/Maroon topographies.”
Laurena Finéus, Crawling back to the skies, 2024, Oil and ink on canvas, 60x84’’. Wallach Gallery at the Lenfest Center for the Arts. Photo: Stefany Lazarre.
Finéus earned a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University (2024) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Ottawa (2020). Her work has been exhibited at Fridman Gallery (2024), CCCADI (2024), Jenkins Johnson (2023), The Next Contemporary (2023), Gallery 101 (2022), Karsh-Masson Gallery (2021), the Ottawa Art Gallery (2021), and Art mûr (2019), among others.
Finéus has work included in private and public collections internationally including the Canada Council Art Bank, the City of Ottawa Art Collection and Google. She was the recipient of the Helen Frankenthaler fund (2023), the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (2022-2023), the Ottawa Arts Council IBPOC Emerging Artist Award (2022), the Edmund and Isobel Ryan Visual art scholarship (2020), and the Ineke Harmina Standish Memorial Scholarship (2019). As an educator, she has facilitated a range of bilingual workshops for the Ottawa art gallery, Arts Network Ottawa, Haitians United for Progress, Diaspora Community Collective, and l’Association Canadienne-francaise de l’Ontario.
Laurena Finéus, Rooted and Routed, 2024, Oil, mica and ink on canvas, 60x68’’.
“I am profoundly grateful and honoured to have been awarded a Saunderson Prize. This generous recognition will play a crucial role in funding a project that stands as the most ambitious endeavour I have undertaken to date. The significance of this award extends beyond mere financial support; it marks a pivotal moment in my career.
Currently, I find myself at a transitional juncture, navigating a crucial phase where expanding my studio space has become imperative for the continued growth and evolution of my work. My current studio limitations have begun to constrain the scope and scale of my creative projects, and a larger space is essential for accommodating the increased demands of my production.
As a 2024 grantee, I am excited that the Prize will significantly alleviate this financial burden and cannot thank The Hnatyshyn Foundation enough for its support.”
“I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Tiffany April, Erin Crowell, and Wall Space Gallery for their steadfast support. I am deeply appreciative of Emma Steen for recognizing my administrative potential and providing me with the opportunity to temporarily financially support my practice through my first full-time position at the ICCA in 2022. This allowed me to take a leap of faith and focus on my practice.
My sincere thanks also go to Martin Golland and Daniel Côté for recognizing my potential early on during my academic years. I want to acknowledge my current mentors, friends, and collaborators, including Sarah-Mecca Abdourahman, as well as The Ottawa School of Art for giving me the opportunity to present my first solo exhibition. I am profoundly grateful to the Ottawa arts community for its unwavering generosity and kindness towards my emerging practice. So many have been instrumental in my journey, and I am truly thankful.’’
Find Laurena at www.laurenafineus.com or on Instagram: @laurenafineus.
Laurena Finéus, Sighting’s : winter bare their souls, 2023, Oil and Mica on canvas, 48x60'' each (diptych). At CCCADI (Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute). Photo: Stefany Lazarre.
SÉAMUS GALLAGHER
Séamus Gallagher is a media artist who has spent most of their life living on Mi’kma’ki, the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Mi’kmaq people.
Through infusing drag aesthetics with self-portraiture, video game engines, and set construction, Gallagher is interested in camp, limits of representation, and failure as a form of liberation. Their practice often takes the form of a video work, a series of photographs, an installation, and occasionally a VR project.
Portrait of Séamus Gallagher by Rita Taylor.
Their work has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto, the Museum of Fine Art of Leipzig, the Portrait Gallery of Canada, as well as the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, among others. In 2023 they had their first solo museum exhibition at the McCord Stewart Museum in Montreal, as part of that year’s MOMENTA biennale de l’image.
Séamus Gallagher, A Geography of Elsewhere Disappearing Into Air, 2023, lenticular print, 40”x60”.
Gallagher is the recipient of the Scotiabank 2022 New Generation Photography Award, the 2022 Nova Scotia Emerging Artist Recognition Award, and the 2019 BMO 1st Art Award. In 2023 they were shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, presented by the National Gallery of Canada.
Gallagher takes inspiration from a multitude of artists, writers and performers including Sin Wai Kin, Jonas Van Holanda, Jose Esteban Muñoz, Mark Fisher, Ursula K. Le Guin, and more.
Séamus Gallagher, A Slippery Place 5, 2021, archival inkjet print, 40”x60”.
“It is such an honour to be recognized through this prize. I am so touched to be included among a long list of incredible artists, many of whom I look up to and admire deeply, like Tau Lewis, Sara Cwynar, Bridget Moser, and Lan ‘Florence’ Yee.
Being a working artist, particularly in 2024, feels so perpetually precarious, so support from the Hnatyshyn Foundation really means the world.”
Séamus Gallagher, A Slippery Place installation, 2023, photo courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada.
Find Séamus at www.seamusgallagher.ca and on Instagram: @shameusseamus.
Séamus Gallagher, You Be Good!, 2023, archival inkjet print, 90”x60”.
JOYCE JOUMAA
Joyce Joumaa is a visual artist working in both Beirut and Montreal. After growing up in Tripoli, she pursued her studies in Film at Concordia University.
Portrait of Joyce Joumaa by Clara Lacasse.
Working primarily with video, Joumaa’s work engages with histories shaped by conflict and crisis while specifically investigating the phenomenology of political performance, often rooted in her native Lebanon or diasporic experiences. Through documentary and experimental filmmaking, archival research, and photography, her practice attempts to create narratives that reimagine our relationship to past events, historical figures, or emblematic sites, examining how they continue to act upon us in the present.
Joyce Joumaa, Thresholds of Insight, 2024, solo exhibition at Plein Sud Centre d’Exposition. Photo: William Sabourin.
Joumaa has exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Stewart Hall Gallery, the Sharjah Architectural Triennial, the 60th Venice Biennial and the 35th edition of Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Centre d’exposition Plein Sud and Eli Kerr Gallery. She is currently working on her next film with the support of the Periculum Foundation.
Joyce Joumaa, Mutable Cycle II, Digital video, in A Temporary Loss of Consciousness, Eli Kerr Gallery. Photo: Simon Belleau.
With the support of the Saunderson Prize, Joumaa will be attending the De Ateliers Residency in Amsterdam, during which she intends on building a new body of work relating to the economic crisis in Lebanon.
Find Joyce at www.joycejoumaa.com or on Instagram: @joycejoumaa.
Joyce Joumaa, Memory Contours, 2024, in Foreigners Everywhere, 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Valentina Mori.
Coming soon
This fall, we look forward to announcing the laureates of our Developing Artist Grants, the inaugural laureates of the DARC Indigenous Residency and the Joysanne Sidimus Ballet Grant, the laureate of the University of Saskatchewan Scholarship for Indigenous Students in Drama, and the laureate of The Hnatyshyn Foundation – Christa and Franz-Paul Decker Fellowship in Conducting. We will also shortly welcome nominations for the inaugural Gerda Hnatyshyn Launch Grants. Stay tuned!
Thank you!
We would like to extend a special thank you to Bill and Meredith Saunderson, whose generous funding of the Saunderson Prizes has celebrated and elevated the work of 30 Canadian emerging visual artists – and counting!
If you are interested in having an award for Canadian artists named after you or a loved one, we would be honoured if you would consider The Hnatyshyn Foundation.
Details on planned giving can be found here.
We also extend our thanks to the countless donors who make our work possible, and to the artists who make it exciting!
