Local artist in running for national contest
A Calgary artist has been named one of 15 finalists for a national arts contest.
Angela Fermor, a 2016 Alberta College of Art and Design grad, made it to the shortlist out of 500 submissions to the RBC Canadian Painting Competition. The winner will be announced Sept. 18 at an awards gala in Toronto. Based in Calgary, Fermor has been creating a series of self-portraits that explore queerness and tackle the challenge of portraying queer identity. Fermor’s submission, oil on panel, is titled Portrait 7, Torso.
“I need to describe not the onedimensional, societal conclusions of queer people, but rather the lack of knowing that I myself experience with it that queer feeling of questioning and never really knowing,” states the entry.
The RBC Canadian Painting Competition is a national contest to help artists bridge the gap from emerging to established.
Over the past two decades, the competition has supported 250 emerging visual artists with mentorship, financial support, and national recognition. This year, on the competition’s 20th anniversary, the top prize includes $25,000 and a residency at Banff Centre for the Arts.
Two honourable mentions will each receive $15,000, and the remaining 12 finalists will receive $2,500 each. The paintings by the winner and two honourable mentions will be added to RBC’s extensive art collection, featuring more than 4,500 Canadian works that have been collected since 1929.
The judges for the competition include experts from Canada’s art community and include Calgary researcher and writer Natasha Chaykowski as well as others from the Emily Carr University of Arts and Design, Fogo Island Arts, and an artist from New York.
Two Edmonton painters are also finalists — Ally McIntyre and Emmanuel Osahor. The others are from Vancouver, Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax.