Award for Outstanding Achievement as an Artist
Rebecca Belmore
November 2009 – The Hnatyshyn Foundation announced the recipients of the 2009
Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Awards. The $25,000 prize for outstanding
achievement by a Canadian artist is awarded to Rebecca Belmore.
Born in Ontario, Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe) works in a variety of media including
sculpture, installation, video and performance. Currently living and working in
Vancouver, Belmore has long been creating work about the plight of the disenfranchised
and marginalized in society. In her poignant and dramatic performances, the artist's own
body becomes the site of historical, cultural and political investigations as she explores
self and community, boundaries between public and private, chaos and linear narrative.
The official representative for Canada at the 2005 Venice Biennale, Belmore's work has
been exhibited internationally since 1987 and can be found in the collections of the
National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada Council Art Bank, and many
others. In 2004 Belmore received the prestigious VIVA award from the Jack and Doris
Shadbolt foundation.
In recommending Rebecca for the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award, the jury
highlighted the impact of her artistic practice: “Since the late 1980s, Rebecca Belmore
has challenged romantic conceptions of Aboriginal cultures through a remarkable series
of performance art pieces and mixed media installations. Her work combines passionate
thinking and a brilliant use of materials with a deep cultural knowledge drawn from her
Anishinaabe heritage. Working tirelessly against historical amnesia, her work gives
expression to silenced voices by restoring value to community, local experience and the
land. In the process, Belmore's work has inspired myriad artists from within and without
the First Nations artistic community to follow her ground-breaking path. Belmore's
achievement has been an ever evolving art practice which, while it explores her own
history, simultaneously challenges the precepts and concepts of contemporary art on a
global stage.”
- - -
Born in Upsala, Ontario, 1960.
Lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia
EDUCATION
Ontario College of Art and Design, 1984–1986
Honorary Doctorate, Ontario College of Art and Design, 2005
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2008
Rebecca Belmore: Rising to the Occasion, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
March 15, 1819, The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, St. John's, Newfoundland (forthcoming)
2006
Parallel, Urban Shaman / aceartinc., Winnipeg, Manitoba
Como in cielo cosi in terra, Franco Soffiantino Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy
2005
Untitled 1, 2, 3, grunt gallery, Vancouver
The Capture of Mary March, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
2004
Temperance, Tribe, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
2003
Extreme, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
2002
The Named and the Unnamed, organized by Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver; toured to Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2003); Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops, British Columbia (2004); Confederation Art Centre, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (2004); McMaster Museum of Art, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario (2006)
2001
33 Pieces, organized by Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario; toured to Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan (2002); Parry Sound Station Gallery, Parry Sound, Ontario (2002); Definitely Superior Gallery, Thunder Bay, Ontario (2003); W. K. P. Kennedy Public Art Gallery, Capitol Centre, North Bay, Ontario (2003)
Private Collection, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto, Ontario
2000
On this ground, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, Rhode Island
1999
Many/One, Optica, Montréal, Québec
Dreamers, Keyano College Art Gallery, Fort McMurray, Alberta
1994
I Wait for the Sun, Faret Tachikawa Art Project, Art Front Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1993
Wana-na-wang-ong, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2008
NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, collaboratively organized and toured by The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York (forthcoming)
Caught in the Act: The Viewer as Performer, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario (forthcoming)
Bureau de Change, Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta (forthcoming)
2007
Projections, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Art Museum, Brooklyn, New York
In the Blink of an Eye, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Replaying Narrative, Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal, Montréal, Québec
Confluence: First Nations Art from John Cook's Collection, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
2006
Ephemeral Monuments: The Interventions of Rebecca Belmore and César Saez, Galerie SAW Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
Zones of Contact, 2006 Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
About Face: Self-Portraits by Native American, First Nations, and Inuit Artists, The Wheelwright Museum of The American Indian, Santa Fe, New Mexico
2005
Intertidal: Vancouver Art and Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art of Antwerp, (MuHKA), Antwerp, Belgium
51st Venice Biennale, Canadian Pavilion, Venice, Italy
Subject to Rule, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario
In My Lifetime / Au fil de mes jours, organized by Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Québec City, Québec; toured to Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Québec (2007 –08)
