Master of Visual Studies graduate Sandra Brewster has been awarded the Gattuso Prize for her exhibition It's all a blur… on at Georgia Scherman Projects (133 Tecumseth Street) until June 24.

The Gattuso Prize of $5,000 acknowledges an outstanding Featured Exhibition in the CONTACT Photography Festival. The jury, which includes Rosemary Heather (writer and curator) and Anique Jordan (executive director, Whippersnapper Gallery), based their decision on the caliber and concept of the work, the curatorial vision, and overall impact and presentation of the exhibition.

Wrote the jury:

With It’s all a blur… Sandra Brewster takes portraiture in a strongly metaphoric direction. Using a labour-intensive method, the artist creates tactile works suggestive of a number of ideas. While evoking the customary role of the photograph as memento, at the same time, these works appear to call forth the emerging subjects of history. The unavoidable scale, presence, and motion embedded in these still images command the attention of viewers to discover the details and traces left behind by the portrait participants.
 

Sandra Brewster is a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist based in Toronto whose work has been exhibited nationally and abroad, engaging many themes that grapple with notions of identity, representation and memory.  

For more information, visit the CONTACT website.