Finalists for Scotiabank Photography Award announced

The possibility that three Montreal photographers might have the Scotiabank Photography Award short list all to themselves expired yesterday, as the finalists for the $50,000 annual award were announced in Toronto.

Six of the 10 names on the long list, which became known on Jan. 28, were of artists living and working in Montreal. Only one of those, Pascal Grandmaison, reached the final three, along with Suzy Lake of Toronto and Jayce Salloum of Vancouver.

Pascal Grandmaison’s La vie abstraite (2015) is a 45-minute exploration of the imaginative transition from close observation of form in nature to abstraction.

Grandmaison, who was born in Montreal in 1975, first captured attention with a two-year portrait series called Verre (2004-2005), in which his solo subjects each held a sheet of glass between them and the camera. His recent work, however, has been dominated by large video installations such as La vie abstraite (2015), a 45-minute exploration of the imaginative transition from close observation of form in nature to abstraction.

Suzy Lake is a pioneer in the use of self-portraiture as a tool in critical feminist art, through works such as her Performing Haute Couture series.

Lake, who was born in Detroit in 1947, has spent much of her career parsing the performance of personal identity, chosen or imposed. She is a pioneer in the use of self-portraiture as a tool in critical feminist art, through works such as her 88-photo series Are You Talking to Me? (1979) and in her recent Performing Haute Couture series.

Jayce Salloum initially focused on media-critical videos with found or repurposed footage. He has more recently filmed personal records of marginalization and resistance by people in Lebanon and elsewhere, and continues with an aggregative still-photo practice featuring large clusters of diverse images.

Salloum, who was born in Kelowna, B.C., in 1958, initially focused on media-critical videos with found or repurposed footage. He has more recently filmed personal records of marginalization and resistance by people in Lebanon and elsewhere, and continues with an aggregative still-photo practice featuring large clusters of diverse images.

Both Salloum and Lake are recent winners of the Governor-General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, Salloum in 2014 and Lake earlier this week.

In addition to the cash prize, the winner of this year’s Scotiabank Photography Award will be given a solo exhibition at Toronto’s Ryerson Image Centre; a feature show at the 2017 CONTACT Photography Festival, also in Toronto; and a publication about the artist’s work from German art-book publisher Steidl. The other two finalists will receive $10,000 each. The winner will be named on May 3.