Visiting Audain Professor Nicholas Galanin wins $50,000

Nicholas Galanin, the 2012 Audain Professor in Contemporary Arts of the Pacific Northwest with the Department of Visual Arts, has won a $50,000 Rasmuson Fellowship from the United States Artists organization. The Sitka-born Galanin is a multi-disciplinary Tlingit/Aleut artist whose teaching term with UVic ran throughout fall 2012. While his fellowship was in the Crafts and Traditional Arts category, the USA news release admits that Galanin’s work—which tends to defy categorization—“might also be described simply as contemporary art with Native themes.” A visual artist and musician, he creates multimedia pieces that often involve computers, video, photo manipulation or sculpture in a variety of forms. Like previous Audain Professors Rebecca Belmore and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, Galanin will present an exhibit of new work in the Audain Gallery—in September 2013.