Arts Award Season Grows...

Today I have a piece in the National Post about RBC Canadian Painting Competition Winner Arabella Campbell, pictured above. The Vancouver artist takes a highly conceptual approach to painting, concentrating on such overlooked workhorses of the genre as stretcher bars and masking tape, making her an unusual (and worthy) choice for a painting award.

Could be global warming, but the Canadian arts award season has heated up considerably in the past few years. Where once there was only the GGs, there is now the RBC award, the Sobey Award (which I am covering next week), the Bell Award in Video Art (recently scooped up by John Greyson) and more in development at the AGO and elsewhere.