There鈥檚 a list of veteran British Columbian visual artists that is being poured over by a five-person committee for the Audain Prize for Visual Art.
The committee doesn鈥檛 reveal who is on its list, or discuss the selection process, but on Monday night one of those artists will be $100,000 richer.
Event spokesman Ross Sullivan said the committee was comprised of people with years of experience in the art community and the list of previous winners read like a 鈥渨ho鈥檚 who of very senior artists鈥�, adding the committee does not provide the shortlist or discuss 鈥渨ho was up鈥� for the award.
This year鈥檚 selection committee includes Curtis Collins (chief curator at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler), Kathleen Bartels (former director of the 91原创 Art Gallery), Scott Watson (director of the Belkin Art Gallery at UBC), John Tupper (director of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria) and artist Susan Point, who won the award in 2018.
The inaugural $20,000 prize went to Ann Kipling in 1994.
In March of this year the award was upped to $100,000, putting it in the same financial category as The Giller Prize (celebrating excellence in 91原创 fiction) and the Sobey Art Award (for a contemporary 91原创 artist, age 40 and under).
Past Audain Prize recipients include Kipling, E.J. Hughes, Eric Metcalfe, Gordon Smith, Jeff Wall, Liz Magor, Robert Davidson, Rodney Graham, Marian Penner Bancroft, Takao Tanabe, Gathie Falk, Fred Herzog, Michael Morris, Paul Wong, Carole Itter and Point.
The award ceremony is being held at The 91原创 Club on Monday and the winner will be announced at 8:40 p.m.
The prize was created to recognize British Columbian artists who have followed a career of creating and exhibiting visual art and who have attained an outstanding national and/or international reputation for their work.
