[Excerpted from ECU News]
Emily Carr University of Art + Design is pleased to present this year’s Emily Award to celebrated contemporary visual artist Nadia Myre, who graduated from ECU in 1997.
The annual Emily Award Program recognizes the outstanding achievements of alum community members whose creative pursuits in the arts, media and design have brought recognition to the university.
Nadia Myre (born 1974) is a contemporary visual artist from Montreal, Quebec and an Algonquin member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation who lives and works in Montreal. For over a decade, her multi-disciplinary practice has been inspired by participant involvement as well as recurring themes of identity, language, and longing and loss.
Canadian Art Magazine writes of the artist, “Nadia Myre’s work weaves together complex histories of Aboriginal identity, nationhood, memory and handicraft, using beadwork techniques to craft exquisite and laborious works.” Through her body of work, Myre is interested in having conversations about collective identity, resilience and the politics of belonging. She graduated from Camosun College (1995) and Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver (1997) and holds a master’s degree in visual arts from Concordia University (2002). Myre has an extensive exhibition history, with over 115 shows—25 of which have been solos—just in the last ten years. Her work can be found in the National Gallery of Canada, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec, the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian Embassies of New York, London, Paris and Greece.
Myre is a recipient of numerous awards, notably Compagne des arts et des lettres du Québec (2019), Banff Centre for Arts Walter Phillips Gallery Indigenous Commission Award (2016), Sobey Art Award (2014), Pratt & Whitney Canada’s ‘Les Elles de l’art’ for the Conseil des arts de Montréal (2011), Quebec Arts Council’s Prix à la création artistique pour la region des Laurentides (2009), and a Fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum (2003). In 2023 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
You can see her work at nadiamyre.net