Big visual art prize announced

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A Dunne-Za First Nation artist, Brian Jungen of Vancouver, is the first winner of Canada's newest visual arts prize, the $50,000 Sobey Art Award. This award will be given every two years to a contemporary Canadian artist under the age of 40.

A runner-up award of $15,000 plus a $10,000 gift from the Sobey Foundation to the host gallery for purchases of contemporary art makes the award the largest prize for visual arts in Canada.

The award was presented last month at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, in Halifax. Jungen, of mixed Dunne-Za and Swiss descent, was one of five finalists.

Born in Fort St. John, in the Peace River district, Jungen, 32, is a 1992 graduate of the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, who has quickly gained a national reputation as one of Canada's most promising young artists. He is noted for his ability to reconfigure everyday objects and transform them into complex and compelling works of art.

His series of eight mask-like sculptures made of spliced together Nike Air Jordan trainers, first shown in Vancouver, put him on the map. Jungen got the idea for the masks, which he titled "Prototypes For New Understanding," about four years ago.

"I was interested in using the collection of Aboriginal art works in museums as a reference point . . . and how that work has become synonymous with Native art practice and the identity of British Columbia. I wanted to use material that was completely paradoxical to that, but merged some ideas of commodification, globalization and work production of material. So, I used Nike Air Jordan trainers which had a very similar red, white and black color scheme and graduated curved lines, and proved to be very flexible working material."

One of the Sobey Award jurors was Ray Cronin, curator at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, who said the jury was impressed "with the way he used the 'Prototype series' to deal with issues of culture, of consumerism and their resonance as sculptures."

Another exhibit of Jungen's was a dazzling, nearly life-size white skeleton of a whale that he made from moulded plastic chairs bought in bulk from Canadian Tire. It was called Shapeshifter and was suspended in the gallery in the manner of a natural history display.

Cronin said, "You immediately get that sort of reference to a whale skeleton in a natural history museum. . . My reaction was one of glee to see something so ubiquitous, so typical, something we all find in our backyards."

The award was the brain-child of Donald Sobey, chair of the Sobey Art Foundation, who thought there was a lack of help for young Canadians in the art world.

"It's exciting to support emerging talent," Sobey said, "and we are extraordinarily proud of the calibre of the field."

To Jungen, the award means "not having to worry about grant-writing for a while, which takes up a lot of the artist's time."