The VIVA Awards are $15,000 prizes, granted annually to British Columbian mid-career artists chosen for "outstanding achievement and commitment" by the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation. [1] The awards are presented by the Shadbolt Foundation in conjunction with the Alvin Balkind Curator's Prize. [2]
Jack Leonard Shadbolt, was a Canadian painter.
"Paul Wong is a Canadian multimedia artist. An artist, curator, and organizer of public interventions since the mid-1970s, Wong is known for his engagement with issues of race, sex, and death. His work varies from conceptual performances to narratives, meshing video, photography, installation, and performance with Chinese-Canadian cultural perspectives".
Marian Penner Bancroft is a Canadian artist and photographer based in Vancouver. She is an associate professor at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where she has been teaching since 1981. She has previously also taught at Simon Fraser University and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She is a member of the board of Artspeak Gallery and is represented in Vancouver by the Republic Gallery.
Michael James Audain, is a Canadian home builder, philanthropist and art collector. He is the Chairman and major shareholder of the privately held Polygon Homes Ltd., one of the largest multi-family builders in British Columbia.
Beau Dick was a Kwakwaka'wakw Northwest Coast artist and Chief who lived and worked in Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada. He was a contemporary artist, activist and hereditary Chief from the Namgis First Nation. Dick was an artist with an extensive national and international exhibition history.
Abraham Jedidiah Rogatnick was an American-born Canadian architect and professor.
Henry Tsang is a contemporary Canadian artist.
Mina Totino is a Canadian painter currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Totino's work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions in Montreal, Toronto and Berlin. She first came to prominence in the 1985 Young Romantics exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Totino's work is informed by contemporary criticism, especially literary and film criticism that have analyzed the position of the imaginary spectator.
Kelly Lycan is an installation and photo-based visual artist who lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Kelly Wood is a Canadian visual artist and photographer from Toronto, Ontario. Wood’s artistic practice is primarily based in Vancouver, B.C. and London, Ontario.
The Audain Prize for the Visual Arts is an annual award that recognizes a distinguished Canadian artist. Worth $100,000, it is one of Canada's most significant honours for the arts. The prize is supported by the Audain Foundation and presented by the Audain Art Museum.
Jeneen Frei Njootli is an interdisciplinary Vuntut Gwitchin artist known primarily for their work with sound and textiles, performance, fashion, workshops, and barbeques.
Elizabeth Zvonar is a Canadian contemporary artist who works primarily with mixed-media collage and sculpture based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is currently represented by Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Krista Belle Stewart is a First Nations visual artist from Canada. Stewart works in a variety of formats, using archival materials, photographs, and collage.
Ron Tran is a visual artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Elspeth Pratt is a Canadian contemporary artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Pratt is best known for her colorful sculptures using "poor" materials such as cardboard, polystyrene, balsa wood and vinyl, and for her interest in leisure and consumerism in domestic and public spaces. Her use of humble, crude, unusual materials has sometimes been compared to the Arte Povera movement.
Scott Watson is a Canadian curator, writer, and researcher based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Watson was the Director/Curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia from 1995 to 2021. As faculty in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia, he helped initiate the Critical Curatorial Studies program at UBC in September 2002. Through his research and publications, he has acted as a champion of contemporary Vancouver artists.
The Audain Art Museum is a 56,000-square-foot private museum located in Whistler, British Columbia, that houses the private art collection of Michael Audain. Designed by Patkau Architects and opened to the public in 2016, it holds a comprehensive permanent collection of British Columbian art.
Doris Shadbolt, née Meisel LL. D. D.F.A. was an art historian, author, curator, cultural bureaucrat, educator and philanthropist who had an important impact on the development of Canadian art and culture.
Jan Wade is a Canadian artist known for her work in mixed-media assemblage, painting, sculpture and textiles. Wade draws inspiration from her personal history as a Black Canadian woman with a mixed cultural background. In 2022 her solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery was the first by a Black female artist in the history of that institution.