Edmonton and Saskatoon finalists announced for RBC's national painting competition

Canada is home to some truly magnificent up-and-coming artists.

And that’s why RBC established the Canadian Painting Competition, developed through its Emerging Artists Project.

Now in its 19th year, the competition recognizes and nurtures the careers of local artists and supports the thriving Canadian visual arts community. It seeks to inject the vitality and diversity of new talent into Canada’s arts landscape.

And now that the 15 jury-selected finalists for this year’s competition have been announced with Canadian Art, we’re pleased to share their work with you.

In fact, from September 1 to October 22, each artist will have their work exhibited at The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa – with the three winners set to be announced on October 17 following two days of jury deliberation.

In total, the RBC competition will award $85,000 in prize money to the winners. After this, the lucky artists will have their paintings added to RBC’s Corporate Art Collection.

Now two Edmonton and Saskatoon-based artists works have made it to the 2017 RBC Canadian Painting Competition finals.

Wei Li – “Obsessiveness and excitement, never growing out of them” (2017)

Wei Li recently received her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta. She created her painting selected for the finals in oil and acrylic on canvas. You can see organic patterns, symbols, and gestures emerge from her experiences, her subconscious, and her imagination through the paintings she creates, layer by layer.

“In my work, I’m searching for a visual language to describe the complex, hybrid energy within our modern society, and addressing the psychological experience of hybridity within contemporary circumstances,” said Li.

Facebook: Wei Li

Laura Payne – “Enneadec II” (2017)

Saskatoon-based artist Laura Payne received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Western University in 2010 and her master’s of fine art from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, where she specialized in painting, video, animation, and installation. She has created “Enneadec II” in acrylic paint on panel and it’s easy to see how her works extend into the viewer’s space, with surface and shape informing one another.

“Though my art practice is primarily painting-driven, the ideas stem from notions of simulated light and the role electronic media plays in contemporary painting (light, documentation, dissemination),” said Payne.

Instagram: @alaurapayne
Facebook: Laura Payne

Other entrants who have made it to the final include Michael Freeman Badour, Ambera Wellmann, and Amanda Boulos from the University of Guelph, M.E Sparks and Angela Teng from Emily Carr University, Toronto-based Veronika Pausova who studied at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Cindy Ji Hye Kim from the Yale School of Art, David Kaarsemaker and Kizi Spielmann Rose from the University of Ottawa, Joani Tremblay from Concordia University, Laura Rokas-Bérubé from San Francisco Art Institute, and Teto Elsiddique from Yale University.

You can check out all of the finalists paintings at an exhibit occurring at the National Gallery of Canada from September 1 to October 22.

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RBC is dedicated to helping communities prosper, supporting a broad range of community initiatives through donations, community investments and employee volunteer activities. The RBC Canadian Painting Competition is just one of many initiatives that demonstrate RBC’s long-standing support for the arts, as well as being one of the most active collectors of Canadian contemporary art in the country.

For more information about the 2017 painting competition, visit RBC online. To get the latest updates and to stay in the know, check out RBC on Facebook and Instagram.