France Trépanier, co-director of Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires, recently announced that the recipient of the inaugural
Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires Emerging Artist Award
is
Kablusiak
Kablusiak receiving their award
At the closing event of the Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. This award of $2000. will be given annually to an emerging artist who is Indigenous or of colour. This Emerging Artist Award is funded exclusively from donations to Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires by artists and others who work in the Canadian art system.
Chris Creighton-Kelly, co-director, said, “We are genuinely delighted to offer this award to Kablusiak - an artist who is just beginning to be recognized for her important contributions, both as an artist and as a curator.” France Trépanier added, “Kablusiak is an outstanding figure among a new generation of talented and prolific Indigenous artists. Both in her visual art practice and her writing, Jade exhibits critical insight combined with an inspired wit.”
On hearing the news, Kablusiak (Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter) commented, “I feel the pressure of the responsibility to maintain my art practice alongside my various curatorial projects. And so I feel incredibly honoured to be supported in this way.”
Kablusiak (Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter) is an emerging Inuk artist and curator based in Calgary/Banff. She was born in Yellowknife and raised in Edmonton. She currently holds the Indigenous Curatorial Research Practicum at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. In autumn 2018, Kablusiak will be part of
the curatorial team, at the new Inuit Art Centre of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. She will begin administrating and curating in preparation for this Centre’s opening in 2020.
Kablusiak uses art and humour as a coping mechanism to subtly address diaspora, and to openly address mental illness; the lighthearted nature of her practice extends gestures of empathy and solidarity. These interests invite a reconsideration of the perceptions of contemporary Indigeneity and counter the stigmatism surrounding mental health.
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Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires is a multi-year, national, bilingual initiative which seeks to place Indigenous art practices at the centre of the Canadian art system. Primary Colours/ Couleurs primairesalso asserts that art practices by people of colour play a critical role in any discussion that imagines the future(s) of Canada.
Banner image: photo by Ian McCausland
