Visual arts award has first recipients

TORONTO — Three young Canadian visual artists will take home a total of $30,000 as the inaugural winners of an award aimed at fostering emerging talent.

Meryl McMaster and Deanna Pizzitelli of Ottawa and Toronto’s Elisa Julia Gilmour are the first recipients of the New Generation Photography Award.

The award, which seeks to support the careers of artists 30 and under working in lensbased art, was presented by Scotiabank on Tuesday in partnership with the Canadian Photography Institute of the National Gallery of Canada.

The three winners will each receive a cash prize of $10,000 and an exhibition in the Ottawa gallery’s Canadian Photography Institute PhotoLab from April 13 to August 19. Their work will also be featured in a Toronto exhibition at OCAD University’s Onsite Gallery between May 5 and June 17.

The winners were selected from a long list of 24 contenders announced in February. The award’s jury included chairwoman Luce Lebart, Stan Douglas, Robert Bean and Elena Navarro.