Winnipeg electronic artist wins Governor General’s Award

Reva Stone

Pioneering electronic artist Reva Stone is in Ottawa this week to kick off a four-month exhibit of her work at the National Gallery and to collect the 2015 Governor General’s Award in visual and media arts.

The award, which recognizes outstanding career achievement, was to be presented April 8 by Gov. Gen. David Johnston at Rideau Hall. It comes with a $25,000 cash prize and a medallion produced by the Canadian Mint (in addition to the exhibit).

“I am thrilled and honoured,” the Jewish Winnipegger said about the award. “It’s not something I ever expected. I am going to enjoy every minute of it.”

She noted that, at a youthful-looking 70, she is among the oldest recipients of the award.

The former Reva Atnikov was born in Winnipeg and raised in Regina. She returned to Winnipeg for university, earned a BA and married a young dentist named Harold Stone.

After being a stay-at-home mom raising her two children, Stone went back to university in 1985 to pursue her passion for art. While she began her artistic career with traditional oils and brushes, she was soon drawn to creating art through electronic and digital means. Over a seven-year period, she transitioned to producing videos and, later, interactive art that explores humanity’s relationship to technology.

“I had to learn everything from scratch,” she said. “There were no resources available to learn from.”

She began using computers in 1990.

“In my work, I try to portray the evolution of technology and how technology changes how we live,” she explains.

 Her Carnevale 3.0, for example, is a life-size aluminum figure  – meant to represent the artist at nine years old – on a robotic platform that uses heat sensors to photograph visitors to the art gallery.

Portal combines software, robotics and cell phone technology to create a work that seems almost human.

Stone was nominated for the award by a board member of the independent support group Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, a group she’s been associated with for a long time.

Her works have been exhibited and are in collections across Canada, as well the United States and Europe. One of her pieces is owned by Seneca College in Toronto, and her most recent exhibition in Toronto was last year at New Adventures in Sound Art.

In August, she’s slated to take part in a show in Vancouver as part of the 2015 International Symposium on Electronic Art.