How can we find beauty in the everyday? What are your most cherished surroundings? How do you connect with your neighbours? What are the food traditions in your family? These questions were at the heart of our student challenge this year, prompting young artists in Grades 7 through 12 to create original works inspired by remarkable trailblazers including Daphne Odjig (1919–2016), Alex Colville (1920–2013), and C.D. Hoy (1883–1973). As one of this year’s finalists poetically notes, Canadian artists throughout history hold the power to ignite a “passionate fire for art… that has been passed down to future artists.” The range of this year’s visual responses to those who have come before is a reminder of the creative significance of Canadian art history—and its vital role in passing the torch to our next generation of makers.
Visit the 2022 student challenge.
The 2022 Canadian Art Inspiration 
Autumn Tigers
The 2021 Canadian Art Inspiration
Mastery in Metal
Through the Lens of C.D. Hoy
The Measure of Nature: 
Artist and Abolitionist
Shuvinai Ashoona: Mapping Worlds
Early Snow: Michael Snow 1947-1962
Harold Town: Art of Evolution
William Kurelek’s Art of Rapture and Reminiscence
Prudence Heward’s Modern Women
Paul-Émile Borduas’s Abstract Revolution
Norval Morrisseau’s Spiritual Vision
Alex Colville: An Everyday Order
Shared History: The Drawings of Pitseolak Ashoona
Personal, Local, and National: Greg Curnoe’s Vision
Art of Perception: Jack Chambers’s Inner Vision
Jock Macdonald: The Search for New Forms of Beauty