"Extended Goodbye," by photographer Suzy Lake is shown in a handout photo. Toronto-based artist Lake is the grand prize winner of the Scotiabank Photography Award. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO
May 03, 2016 - 5:02 PM
TORONTO - Longtime artist Suzy Lake has won the Scotiabank Photography Award.
Lake was awarded the $50,000 grand prize at a gala reception Tuesday night at the Ryerson Image Centre in Toronto.
The Toronto-based Lake will also receive a solo primary exhibition at the centre during the 2017 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, and a book of her work will be published and distributed by art book publisher Gerhard Steidl.
Following the social and political unrest of the 1960s, Lake moved from her birthplace of Detroit to Montreal and began her practice in 1968.
She was among the first female artists in Canada to adopt performance, video and photography to explore the politics of gender, the body and identity.
In 1972, she teamed with a dozen other artists to form Vehicule Art Inc., billed as one of the country's first artist-run centres.
Lake moved to Toronto in 1978 and where she became a co-founder of the Toronto Photographers Workshop.
Jury chair Edward Burtynsky hailed Lake's work as "pioneering," and said her influence has spread throughout generations of artists at home and abroad.
Short list finalists Pascal Grandmaison of Montreal and Jayce Salloum of Vancouver will each receive cash prizes of $10,000.
The Scotiabank Photography Award is billed as the country's largest and most prestigious peer-nominated and peer-reviewed photography award.
Founded in 2010, the honour recognizes the achievements of an established mid- to later-career artist and the outstanding contribution that he or she has made to contemporary art and photography in Canada.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2016