Quadruple win for Fine Arts
Four artists from the Concordia community have been recognized by the Hnatyshyn Foundation, a private charity supporting emerging Canadian artists.
Concordia Department of Theatre student Sarah Marchand was one of eight university students across the country to receive a Developing Artist grant worth $10,000.
Marchand was selected for the English theatre acting prize. Judges at the Hnatyshyn Foundation were impressed by her performance submissions and her willingness to take risks in her choice of materials, writing that they “would highly endorse all support to secure her spot as a professional actress.”
Marchand, who started the fourth and final year of her double major in theatre performance and English literature this fall, said the grant served as a positive reminder that the arts are still important.
“For me, it’s very encouraging,” she said. “Acting is such an uncertain kind of profession to go into, so to get a grant like this is reassuring that there are still ways that I can be financially secure and do what I really enjoy.”
“In my first year a professor told me something very useful: ’Make what you can with your degree,’” said Marchand, who feels that winning this award shows just how important it is for artists to take advantage of the opportunities for funding or recognition available to them.
Sarah Marchand won the $10,000 English theatre acting prize from the Hnatyshyn Foundation.She is a fourth-year theatre student at Concordia.
Marlène Renaud-Bouchard won one of three $5,000 grants for emerging artists. She is pursuing a Master’s degree in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia.
“You don’t always need to be the best of the best, you just need to work hard and be determined,” she said.
The Hnatyshyn Foundation’s three Charles Patcher Prizes for Emerging Artists went to Concordia Faculty of Fine Arts graduates Andréanne Godin, MFA 13, and Kim Kielhofner, BFA 07, along with current MFA student Marlène Renaud-Bouchard.
Renaud-Bouchard was surprised to learn she had been chosen for one of the $5,000 awards. All three were nominated by Nicole Gingras, a Montreal-based curator and part-time studio arts professor in Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts.
“Being an artist, you’re always unsure of what the future might be like, so getting approval like this is just overwhelming,” Renaud-Bouchard said.
She said she intends to put her grant money towards her studio and realizing some projects that “were only on paper.”
Renaud-Bouchard is a multidisciplinary artist with an interest in exploring sound, particularly the “unheard.” Gingras praised Renaud-Bouchard’s work and her ability “to place herself in the middle of actions that consist, literally or metaphorically, in probing a space.”
The Hnatyshyn Foundation is an Ottawa-based charity which began awarding grants in 2005. The foundation is run by Gerda Hnatyshyn and named after her husband, the late Governor General Ramon John Hnatyshyn.
Eight Developing Artist grants worth $10,000 each are awarded every year by the foundation. The Charles Patcher Prize, valued at $5,000 and bestowed on three promising visual artists annually, was established in 2012.
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