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, beginning with 2006 laureate Peter Powning. 

For Peter's 2006 acceptance speech, click here: http://www.powning.com/peter/essays/2006-saidye-bronfman-award-acceptance-speech.html

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

Artist's Brief Biography:

Since 1970, Peter Powning has lived and worked as an artist in the hills of southern New Brunswick. While Powning’s award-winning work is shown internationally, it is imbued with qualities distilled from a life lived close to the silence, space and seasonal rhythms of his home, the fields, forests and shorelines of Canada’s east coast.  He works in a wide range of media, usually in combinations including cast bronze, glass, stone, clay and steel. He also produces large photographic prints of ephemeral work.

Artist's Statement:  I often work in series. Themes develop. Much of my work is concerned with humans as part of nature. Our brief tenure as a species has wrought enormous changes to our environment. While I don't address this life-long concern in my art in a literal way, I think the work reflects the tenuous nature of the human experience -- how the new becomes ancient. How the whole becomes fragmented. How the once understood and familiar become obscure. It’s also about seeking balance. Balance is not a static thing. It is never achieved, but is always an act of engagement.