Sheridan graduate Kent Monkman wins Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts

Indigenous artist Kent Monkman, a 1986 graduate of Sheridan’s Illustration program, has received a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

Created in 1999 by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Governor General of Canada, the awards recognize remarkable careers in the visual and media arts. The winners receive a medallion and a cash prize of $25,000.

A member of the Fisher River Cree Nation in Manitoba, Monkman is renowned for his monumental paintings, films and installations which offer provocative critiques of Canada’s history and the way it has been recorded. The honour comes two years after Monkman was named to the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honours that recognizes people who make extraordinary contributions to the nation.

“We are immensely proud of Kent for being recognized with a Governor General’s Award,” says Dr. Janet Morrison, President and Vice Chancellor of Sheridan. “His passion for connecting with audiences through a variety of mediums inspires our students. Sheridan is honoured to have been a part of his creative journey.”

In 2014, Monkman received the Indspire Award — the highest honour the Indigenous community bestows upon its achievers. He has also been awarded the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award, the Bonham Centre Award, an honorary doctorate degree from OCAD University, and the Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Monkman has exhibited at national and international galleries, including the Royal Ontario Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Smithsonian’s National Museum, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the Musée d’Art Contemporain, and the Palais de Tokyo. He was the inaugural artist to participate in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s series of contemporary works and his paintings, unveiled in December 2019, were installed on either side of the museum’s main entrance in the Met’s Great Hall. The New York Times called his work “stupendous,” and characterized Monkman’s gender-fluid alter ego Miss Chief as “an avatar of a global future that will see humankind moving beyond the wars of identity – racial, sexual, political – in which it is now perilously immersed.”