Inuk woman named first recipient of new emerging artist award

The recipient of the inaugural Primary Colours/Couleurs primaires Emerging Artist Award is Jade Nasogaluak Carpenter, an Inuk artist and curator based in Calgary/Banff.

She was born in Yellowknife and raised in Edmonton. She currently holds the Indigenous Curatorial Research Practicum at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

In autumn 2018, Jade will be part of the curatorial team at the new Inuit Art Centre of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. She will begin administrating and curating in preparation for this Centre’s opening in 2020.

The Primary Colours award of $2,000 will be given annually to an emerging artist who is Indigenous or of colour.

“I feel the pressure of the responsibility to maintain my art practice alongside my various curatorial projects. And so I feel incredibly honoured to be supported in this way,” said Carpenter.

“We are genuinely delighted to offer this award to Jade, an artist who is just beginning to be recognized for her important contributions, both as an artist and as a curator,” said Chris Creighton-Kelly, co-director of Primary Colours.

Carpenter uses art and humor as a coping mechanism to subtly address diaspora, reads a press statement, and to openly address mental illness... These interests invite a reconsideration of the perceptions of contemporary Indigeneity and counter the stigmatism surrounding mental health.

“Jade is an outstanding figure among a new generation of talented and prolific Indigenous artists,” said Primary Colours co-director France Trépanier. “Both in her visual art practice and her writing, Jade exhibits critical insight combined with an inspired wit.”