Medusa by Chris Curreri. Image courtesy Daniel Faria Gallery.
Untitled (Clay Portfolio) by Chris Curreri. Image courtesy Daniel Faria Gallery.

Photographer Chris Curreri (Foundation Studies, 1998) was shortlisted for the prestigious Sobey Art Award. The annual contemporary Canadian art award celebrates the work of artists under age 40 exhibiting in public or commercial galleries. Works by the shortlisted artists will be shown at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in November, and the winner of the $50,000 prize will be announced at a gala event on November 19. Finalists will each receive a $10,000 award.

Curreri, who is represented by the Daniel Faria Gallery, recently exhibited new works in Medusa (November, 2013 to February, 2014), a portfolio of photographs focusing on the materiality of clay as it shifts between states of form and formlessness. Curreri, who was taking weekly classes at the Gardiner Museum of ceramic art in Toronto, photographed students’ wet, discarded projects and the recycling of this clay.

The Sobey Art Award shortlist also includes Evan Lee (West Coast and the Yukon), Neil Farber and Michael Dumontier (Prairies and the North), Nadia Myre (Quebec) and Graeme Patterson (Atlantic). Curreri was selected for Ontario. The curatorial panel chose the five artists for practices emerging from personal experience and addressing social and cultural concerns, and for the lasting impact the panel believes each of the artists are leaving on Canadian art.

Earlier this year, Curreri, together with Reena Katz (Integrated Media Medal Winner, 2010) and Jean-Paul Kelly, an Integrated Media instructor, celebrated making it to the longlist for the award. Curreri and Kelly were also longlisted for the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize.

Find out more

Chris Curreri

Globe and Mail feature

Canadian Art magazine feature

Sobey Art Award 

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