UVic Student Named BC Winner In National Art Competition

Maegen Mehler, a fresh graduate of the University of Victoria’s Visual Arts department, is the British Columbia winner of BMO Financial Group’s national 1st Art! Invitational Student Art Competition.
       With 250 entrants across the country and 38 in BC alone, Mehler is one of 12 regional winners, with Université du Québec à Montréal’s Sandrine Côté named the national winner. “It’s just crazy, I can't believe it’s happening,” says Mehler. “It feels great to have this opportunity.” This is UVic’s second win in BMO’s 1st Art! competition; the first was inaugural national winner Matt Shane in 2004.
       Competitors must have the support of their university and be enrolled in their final semester in order to enter, and Visual Arts chair Daniel Laskarin didn’t hesitate to back Mehler’s entry: an oil-on-canvas portrait titled Josh. “She has exceptional talent, and developed a strong body of work in both painting and sculpture while she was here,” says Laskarin.
       In addition to $2,500 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Toronto for the exhibition’s opening, Mehler’s work will appear in the fall issue of Canadian Art magazine and become part of BMO’s permanent corporate art collection. “It's really tough to be an artist in this country,” says BMO curator and 1st Art! creator Dawn Cain. “The contest was intended as a way of acknowledging accomplished work and encouraging these artists, recognizing their work has value and they should keep it up."
       Now based in Edmonton, Mehler will return to Victoria on August 19 to curate an exhibit at the Fifty-Fifty Arts Collective on Douglas Street. BMO’s 1st Art! exhibit runs October 5-30 at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

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