June 18 - August 30

Taking inspiration from sources as varied as Japanese video games and the natural history museum, and using non-traditional materials like flowers and pickled vegetables, the work of the five artists vying for the $10,000 RBC Emerging Artist People’s Choice Award, voted on by the public, promises to challenge visitors’ expectations and preconceptions about ceramic art.

The RBC Emerging Artist People’s Choice Award, the Gardiner Museum’s featured summer exhibition, celebrates new directions in clay through the work of five rising stars of the contemporary art world who are redefining the ceramic medium. Each artist has been allotted eighteen square feet in the Museum’s main exhibition hall to animate according to their own unique vision.

The five artists—Derya Akay (Vancouver), David R. Harper (Toronto), Lisa Henriques (Vancouver), Veronika Horlik (Montreal), and Zane Wilcox (Regina)—have been nominated by a panel of established practitioners and experts that includes well-known contemporary art collectors Joe Friday and Ydessa Hendeles; aritsts Pascale Girardin and Sally Michener; and Chair of Craft at NSCAD University, Rory MacDonald.