New Year, New Energy, New Works!
Meet the 2 newest members of the Yukon Prize Committee:
Xina Cowan
Rhoda Merkel leading a Paint Like Ted workshop
Other members of the Yukon Prize Committee are:
Mary Bradshaw, Director of Visual Arts, Yukon Arts Centre
Al Cushing, Yukon Arts Foundation
Duncan Sinclair, Yukon Arts Foundation
Mary Jane Warshawski, Local Businessperson
Julie Jai and David Trick, Co-Founders
The Yukon Prize committee consists of hard-working volunteers who plan and organize all of the events and activities relating to the Yukon Prize for Visual Arts, which strives to recognize excellence by Yukon visual artists and act as a catalyst for the promotion of Yukon visual art nationally and internationally.
Save the Date!
Thanks to everyone who provided feedback about the 2025 Yukon Prize celebrations date.
After considering many factors, the weekend of October 3-4, 2025, has been selected for the 2025 Yukon Prize Weekend and Celebratory Gala.
This seems far away, but the Yukon Prize Committee is already working hard to plan the 2025 Yukon Prize cycle and events.
Note to artists: Applications for the 2025 Yukon Prize will open on August 15, 2024. Yes, only six months from now! So, it’s not too early to start thinking about what artwork you want to include in your application. Artists can include any works created in the last five years.
Artists who have applied in the past (even finalists but not the Yukon Prize recipients) are encouraged to apply again.
Alumni News
2021 Yukon Prize finalist Veronica Verkley was invited to participate in a thematic residency, Gather by Fire at the Empire of Dirt, organized by The Hibernation Project, Creston BC.
Veronica’s piece, Fight or Flight Study Skins #1, made from discarded clothing, wires, wood and string, is currently showing in Out in the Open/En Plein Art; Jim Smith Building, Whitehorse, Yukon, along with other recent purchases by the Yukon Permanent Art Collection, including works by Yukon Prize alumni Meshell Melvin, Jackie Olson, Rosemary Scanlon and Rebekah Miller.
2021 finalist Krystle Silverfox has been the artist in residence at the Yukon School of Visual Art (SOVA) in Dawson. Her new exhibition, Raven
Image c/o Krystle’s Instagram
2023 finalist Cole Pauls recently returned from the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême, France, where he represented the Yukon and Champagne and Aishihik First Nations with his comics. He currently has artworks in the group show, XIÁM, at the Bill Reid Gallery in Vancouver, which celebrates Indigenous storytelling through comics. Two of his stories, both Southern Tutchone romance comics, are on display.
Image c/o Cole’s Instagram
2021 Yukon Prize recipient Joseph Tisiga has a new solo exhibition of large-scale paintings at the Bradley Ertaskiran Gallery in Montreal, entitled “It was God the Whole Time”. His gallerist states: Tisiga creates paintings that are purposefully difficult to read. They are not perfect documents, nor are they plain interpretations of an unhinged outer world; they are nuanced bits of life digested and spat back out, always entirely on the artist’s terms.
Image c/o Joesph’s Website
2023 finalist Omar Reyna is working on a new series entitled Last When. The inspirations are black holes in astronomy and the idea that a dark void lives inside every one of us – is this black area the salvation of the cosmos or the immediate end of this world?
These works are transmutations of black-and-white film photographic images into mixed-media photo-sculptural objects with length, breadth and some simulation of depth. There are elevations and depressions due to the layering of the photography with the watercolour paper, but also holes with lights to create another type of spatial connection between the artwork and its viewers. He is also experimenting with using paper folding in his artwork.
Image c/o Omar’s Website
Put Yourself in the Picture
To make a charitable donation online to support Yukon art and artists through the Yukon Prize, please donate through our partner, the Yukon Arts Foundation, via Canada Helps.
Where you see the heading: “Apply your donation to a specific fund set up by this charity” select “Yukon Prize for Visual Arts” from the drop down menu.
You will receive a charitable donation receipt immediately by email from Canada Helps, identifying your support for the Yukon Prize for Visual Arts.