Amy Duval and Jeanne Letourneau Win National Awards from Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery

Images (left to right): Amy Duval, Originate/Replicate (detail). Mixed media wall installation in the Tumbleweed Project Space, Medicine Hat, Alberta. 2022. Ceramic, unfired clay, mesh, spray paint. 426 x 213 cm. Jeanne Letourneau, Chaussure N.03 from the Objects and Relics Series, 2021. Cristal. 4 x 4 x 7.5”. Photo by Joh Wax.

The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is thrilled to announce that Amy Duval of Medicine Hat, Alberta and Jeanne Letourneau of Montréal, QC are the winners of the 2023 Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics and the 2023 RBC Award for Glass, respectively. Duval and Letourneau will each receive a $10,000 prize, which will support the development of their careers at this critical time. The only national awards for emerging ceramic and glass artists in Canada, the Winifred Shantz and RBC Awards are prestigious honours. Presented through ongoing partnerships with The Keith & Winifred Shantz Fund for the Arts held at Waterloo Region Community Foundation and RBC Emerging Artists, winners and finalists of these awards are recognized as the best and brightest of the future of Canadian ceramics and glass art.

We also celebrate the achievement of the finalists for this year’s awards. The jurors have named François Grenier (Chatham, ON), and Brianne Siu (Burnaby, BC) as finalists of the Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics, each receiving a prize of $1,000 to further their practice. The jurors of the RBC Award for Glass have selected to honour Charlie Larouche-Potvin (Montréal, QC) as the runner up, with a prize of $2,500, and Nadira Narine (Toronto, ON) as a finalist with a prize of $1,000.

This summer, the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery will feature the winners and finalists in our awards exhibition, Emergence. The exhibition will provide a rare opportunity for these emerging makers to share their work with an extensive audience while helping to build their careers at a pivotal moment.

“Our 3 finalists for the Winifred Shantz award this year all showed exceptional promise, and we as jurors agreed that we will undoubtedly observe them all contribute to the ceramics community here in Canada in the coming years. Although all three presented solid proposals, Amy Duval rose to the top. Her varied and uninterrupted career path in ceramics since her undergraduate studies, exhibits a maturity and commitment that sets her aside from most artists with this tenure. Amy has both built a career for herself while meaningfully contributing to our community through exhibition, teaching, public presentations and working in arts administration.”
— 2023 Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics Jurors Elaine Cheasley Paterson, Robin Dupont, and Roswitha Wulff

“The work of the winning finalist Jeanne Letourneau shows an unusual commitment to glass making at such an early stage in her career with a strong and well thought out conceptual framework. Jeanne’s current work is focused on the contemporary urban environment and her proposal for new work will shine a new light on everyday urban objects and how they can be revered as status symbols when transformed into kiln-cast glass. […] The jury were thrilled to be able to support such a strong and able applicant, ensuring that Jeanne will be able to continue to fully contribute to the Canadian art glass scene.”
— 2023 RBC Award for Glass Jurors Susan Edgerley, Jessamy Kelly, and Julia Reimer

For more information about the Winifred Shantz for Ceramics, visit our website.

For more information about the RBC Award for Glass, visit our website.

About the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery
The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is a long-standing site of excellence and a destination for contemporary art for international tourists and regional citizens. We present critically acclaimed exhibitions that challenge ideas and perceptions of the definitions of art, craft and design today. The Gallery is a relevant and dynamic cultural organization providing supportive education programs to people from across the region. Using exhibitions as a starting point, individuals develop arts vocabulary and appreciation and cultivate confidence in their interpretation of contemporary artworks. For more information, visit: www.theclayandglass.ca