Awards from the Foundation were first made in 2007. Awards have been made in years when funds have been available from the growing endowments, or when funds have been donated for specific annual awards.
These awards are made possible because of the generosity of our endowment donors. Thank you for your vision, commitment and support of Saskatchewan Artists.
We acknowledge the current and past volunteer Board of Trustees for their efforts in supporting the work of the Foundation.
In 2016, the designated endowment funds provided 5 awards of $6000 each.
The Foundation gratefully acknowledges the expertise of the Saskatchewan Arts Board for the facilitation of the adjudication process.
SHERI BENNING – Literary Artist
Sheri Benning grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. She’s since travelled widely while studying. Her third collection of poetry, The Season’s Vagrant Light: New and Selected Poems, was recently published in the UK by Carcanet Press. Her previous collections, Thin Moon Psalm (Brick Books) and Earth After Rain (Thistledown Press), each won two Saskatchewan Book Awards. Thin Moon Psalm also received a ReLit Prize nomination and the Alfred G. Bailey Manuscript Award. Her poetry, short fiction and essays have appeared in numerous Canadian, British and Irish journals and anthologies. Sheri is also the inaugural recipient of the Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Emerging Artists. She completed a PhD at the University of Glasgow and is currently the Faculty of Arts Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Regina.
This Award supports the development of the novel-in-progress, In Ordinary Time. Excerpts have been shortlisted for the CBC short story prize and won first place in Grain magazine’s short story contest. A previous draft won second place in the John V. Hicks manuscript awards.
* Archival biography; no update available at this time.
DONNA ROSE LANGHORNE [aka Donna The Strange] – Indigenous Artist
Donna Langhorne is a member of Fishing Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan. She is a self-taught visual artist who self-identifies professionally as “Donna the Strange”. Comfortable in many styles, she has garnered national acclaim, in particular for her work as a Woodlands artist, and especially for exploring how the genre can be used to address contemporary issues facing Indigenous people.
Her work has been supported by the Canada Council, Sask Arts, the Saskatchewan Foundation for the Arts, and the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations. Her Common Truths series of paintings is currently on a three-year tour through the Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils. Work from her Seven Visions series was featured nationally as part of the billboard campaign organized by the group Artists Against Racism, and has been licensed to many organizations, including the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
She has been invited to serve as the artist partner for a research project entitled Organ Donation and Transplantation: Examining Culturally-Safe Public Health Education and Health Care Services with Indigenous Peoples. She was also asked to be a panelist for the Power Lines Symposium organized by Wanuskewin Heritage Park.
Her work is available through Nouveau Gallery in Regina, Dervilia Art & Design in Saskatoon, DaVic Gallery in British Columbia, and Manitoba-based Red Eagle Promotions, as well as Donna The Strange On-Line Art Gallery.
* Featured Artist
JOEY TREMBLAY – Regina Artist
Joey Tremblay is an auteur-director, playwright, theatre-maker, actor and Artistic Director of Curtain Razors. He grew up in a southeast Saskatchewan hamlet called Ste. Marthe. Joey holds a BFA in Drama from the University of Regina (1987) and a diploma from the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School (1989). After several years as a freelance actor, Joey co-founded Noises in the Attic, a theatre company mandated to create new Canadian plays on the fringe festival circuit across Canada. From 1996 to 2001, Tremblay was the Artistic Co-Director of Catalyst Theatre in Edmonton. During this period, he wrote, co-directed and produced as many as 15 performance events and full-length scripts that toured across Canada, Great Britain and Australia. Joey was also a member of the English Theatre Ensemble at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa for four years. His work has garnered over 30 awards and nominations for outstanding writing, direction, production and acting.
This Award supported the production of the play, Bad Blood. Bad Bloodis a gothic retelling of Joey’s harrowing experience with the Saskatchewan healthcare system.
* Archival biography; no update available at this time.
ZANE WILCOX – Male Visual Artist
Zane Wilcox earned an MFA from the University of Regina (2012) and a BMus from the University of British Columbia (1999). He has received numerous awards, including the Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the International Sculpture Center. Zane’s work has been exhibited across Canada and in the United States and Australia. It is found in public collections including the MacKenzie Art Gallery and Global Affairs Canada. Outside of the studio, he has been active as a juror, visiting artist, workshop presenter and teacher.
I received a SFFA Artists Award to help me dedicate most of 2017 to the creation of work for two solo exhibitions. This very productive time led to two distinct bodies of work. In addition to a new chapter in my ongoing investigation of the ceramic vessel as a subject for sculpture, I was able to develop a new body of wall mounted relief works exploring colour and spatial relationships. Work created during this time was shown in exhibitions in four Canadian Provinces, including a juried National survey of Canadian craft.
* Featured Artist
CAROL WYLIE – Female Visual Artist
They didn’t know we were seeds involved meeting with holocaust and residential school survivors and listening to their stories. As a Jewish person, I am familiar with the atrocities of the holocaust. As a long-time Saskatchewan resident, I was less familiar with those related to residential schools, despite it being the history of the place I call home. In the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report (TRC), I wanted to bear witness to the trauma and resilience of residential school survivors while also helping preserve the experiences of my people. I hoped to understand personal survival of horrendous treatment at the hands of oppressors, to make a human connection and to underline pain and trauma as great equalizers. This idea gained momentum upon reading about holocaust survivor Robbie Waisman’s meetings with residential school survivors to talk about trauma and healing. It reaffirmed a connection between the two peoples.
As a portrait painter, I speak through portraiture. A painted portrait requires minute observation, openness, engagement over time and patience. Images filter through the artist’s perception and physical expression resulting from a uniquely intimate interaction between artist and sitter.
The final project consists of eighteen large-scale oil paintings, eighteen being symbolic in Judaism as meaning chai or life.
* Featured Artist