As the Canada Council for the Arts celebrates the 40th anniversary of this award, we are thrilled that Pamela Ritchie has been named the 2017 laureate. We will be celebrating L.A. Pai Gallery artists who are previous recipients. 

2009 recipient Kevin Lockau is a leading innovator in hot casting techniques.  Throughout his career, Lockau has fought against the “glass aesthetic,” against pursuit of the readily beautiful qualities of blown glass.  Instead, he treats glass as a sculptural, almost a found, material.  

Kevin Lockau's acceptance speech can be viewed below, courtesy of the Glass Art Association of Canada.

To view more works from this artist's collection, click here:  https://www.lapaigallery.com/collections/peter-powning

About the artist:

Throughout his career, Lockau has regularly been invited to give workshops, seminars and lectures at prestigious glass institutions across Canada (Calgary, Montreal, Toronto); and internationally (New York, Ohio, Illinois and Belgium).  He has received numerous international scholarships and awards such as the Corning Museum Glass Award, the Libensky/Brychtova, Bertil Vallien, and Bert Van Loo scholarships.  He is a founding member of “10 North,” a group of Canada’s foremost glass artists.  In 2003, Lockau founded the Stone Carving Symposium that takes place annually in Bancroft, Ontario.  Recently, he has sat on an advisory committee with Sir Sandford Fleming College, setting in motion their new glass blowing program at the campus in Haliburton, Ontario.

 Lockau’s work has been exhibited across Canada, the United States and Europe (France, Finland, Germany, Sweden).  He participates regularly in the international SOFA Art Fairs in Chicago and New York and Palm Beach, and his sculptures are included in public and private collections such as the Musee des arts decoratifs de Montreal, the Musee des arts decoratifs de Lausanne, Switzerland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, and  William Grenewald: Executive Director of the American Crafts Council.