RBC Award for Glass - The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery

2024 RBC Award for Glass

The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery is thrilled to announce that Charlie Larouche-Potvin of Montréal, QC is the winner of the 2024 RBC Award for Glass! Larouche-Potvin will receive a prize of $10,000 to support the development of his career through the creation of a large-scale work exploring narrative and knowledge.

This year’s runner-up is Jérémie St-Onge of Montréal, QC, who will receive a $5,000 prize to support their practice. We congratulate this year’s finalists, each receiving a $1,000 prize: Dorothée Bouliane (Montréal, QC), Gordon Boyd (Oakville, ON), and Leia Shijie Guo (Calgary, AB).

Charlie Larouche-Potvin, *Une belle histoire*, 2023. Blown glass. Photo by Connor Patterson.

Jérémie St-Onge, *Étude de couleur No.1*, 2023. Glass. 54x30x25cm. Verre d’Onge. Private collection.

The 2024 RBC Award for Glass was juried by Susan Edgerley, Tyler Rock, and Aaron Schey. The RBC Award for Glass is Canada’s singular and most important prize awarded to emerging artists in glass, highlighting and celebrating new Canadian talent. This year the jurors were impressed by the strong applications and wholeheartedly congratulate the winner, runner-up, and finalists. Recognizing the work of winner Charlie Larouche Potvin, they particularly appreciated his exquisite technical skills and deep understanding of historical Venetian glass within a contemporary exploration of the drinking vessel form. They also awarded Jérémie St-Onge with the runner-up prize for his innovative research project exploring landscape with blown glass. Overall, the wide range of creative approaches and techniques of all applicants reveals the strength of the emerging glass talent across the country and underscores the importance of the RBC Award to the continued support and development of their professional careers.

The winner and finalists of the RBC Award for Glass will be presented in Emergence, our annual awards exhibition alongside the winner and finalists of the Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics this summer. Larouche-Potvin will receive his prize at the opening reception to be held on Sunday, June 2, 2024, at 2pm.

Charlie Larouche-Potvin, Winner (Montréal, QC)

Charlie Larouche-Potvin discovered glass at Espace Verre in Montréal, where he graduated in 2020. He quickly developed a passion for Venetian glassblowing techniques. Since graduating, perfecting his understanding of the material has been his focus. He was part of the Fusion program offered by Espace Verre from 2020 to the end of 2022. He also took classes with renowned glassblowers at the Corning Museum of Glass as well as with Davide Fuin in his personal studio in Murano, where he had the opportunity to work as an assistant during the summer of 2023. He was an Associate in Residence at the Jam Factory in the beginning of 2023 and is now an Artist-in-Residence at Harbourfront Centre. His growing knowledge in Venetian techniques allowed him to be a finalist in the 2022 and 2023 RBC Award for Glass as well as the Prix François-Houdé 2021-2022 and 2023.

Jérémie St-Onge, Runner-up (Montréal, QC)

Born in 1996, Jérémie St-Onge is a glass blower in his early career, living and
working in Montréal. St-Onge was initiated to glass craftsmanship during his studies
at Espace VERRE. Pursuing his apprenticeship, he joined BabaJaga Glassworks
and worked full-time as first assistant for 5 years. St-Onge launched his solo project
named Verre d’Onge in 2019. His work has now been presented in different salons
and exhibitions in Canada, USA, France, Italy and China. Jérémie St-Onge is a 2022
and 2023 François-Houdé Craft Prize finalist, a 2021 RBC Award for Glass finalist
and won the 2021 Archiproduct Design Award for the Lighting category in Milan, with
his collaboration with Studio d’Armes. Verre d’Onge keeps evolving with the many
projects and collaborations to come.

Dorothée Bouliane, Finalist (Montréal, QC)

Dorothée Bouliane est une jeune artiste professionnelle naviguant entre métiers d’art et arts visuels ayant comme matière de prédilection le verre. Originaire de la région fluviale de Chaudière-Appalaches, elle vit et crée à Montréal depuis les dernières années. Elle gradue en 2022 de la technique en métier d’art à Espace Verre offert en collaboration avec le Cégep du Vieux-Montréal et est récipiendaire de plusieurs bourses depuis. La jeune artiste se spécialise dans la fabrication d’objets et d’installations de verre soufflé et de verre coulé avec la technique de cire perdue. Dorothée aborde dans ses créations l’absurdité de notre monde, l’étrangeté de l’existence humaine, l’irrationalité et la relativité à travers la narration et la dualité.

Gordon Boyd, Finalist (Oakville, ON)

Gordon Boyd was born and raised in Northern Manitoba, growing up inspired by the colours of the landscape around him, he began painting and drawing at a young age. After being introduced to glass in 2015, moved to Ontario to study the craft, enticed by the beauty, as well as the difficulty inherent in the medium. While completing his Bachelors of Craft and Design at Sheridan College, Gordon worked in a variety of studios learning how to care for and build the equipment, using his free time to continue his exploration of glass.

Leia Shijie Guo, Finalist (Calgary, AB)

Leia Guo (she/her) is a Moh’kinsstis (Calgary) based interdisciplinary artist who works at the intersection of analog photography and contemporary glassmaking. Deviating from traditional aesthetics of glassmaking within craft, she uses both the presence and absence of glass in the darkroom to create unique photographic prints of the Albertan landscape that visualize the feeling of “hiraeth” – a longing for a home that is long gone or a home that never truly existed.

She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art in Glass and a Bachelor of Design in Photography from the Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts) in Calgary, Alberta. In 2023, she was awarded the coveted Pilchuck Fellowship by the Pilchuck School of Glass in WA, USA and received the Early Achievement Award from the Alberta Craft Council.

About the RBC Award for Glass

The RBC Award for Glass is presented annually by the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery and is supported by the RBC Foundation. This prestigious $10,000 award allows practising early-career glass artists to undertake a period of independent research, or other activities that advance their artistic and professional practice. One runner-up will receive a prize of $5,000. Up to 3 finalists will also be selected who will each receive a prize of $1,000. Each summer, the winners and finalists of the RBC Award for Glass and Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics will have their work presented in an awards exhibition held at the Gallery.

Jeanne Létourneau, 2023 RBC Award for Glass Winner, *Objects and Relics* series (detail), 2022-2023. Glass. 4’ x 4’ x 2’. Collection of the Artist.

Recipients of the award represent some of the best emerging glass artists in Canada. To learn more about the previous winners, click here.

About RBC Emerging Artists

RBC Emerging Artists supports organizations that provide the best opportunity to advance an artist’s career trajectory in genres such as visual arts, music, theatre, performance, literature and film. Every year the RBC Foundation donates millions of dollars to hundreds of arts organizations globally to help emerging artists become established.