Featured Artist

Each year we invite a digital artist to contribute a body of work that informs the visual identity of the award, and is showcased throughout our website, social media, and other promotional materials. Learn more about the 2023 Featured Artist below.

Driftnote, Monotypic (2023) 

My series of digital works entitled Monotypic draws from my experiences growing up near the Atlantic Ocean. ‘Monotypic’ refers to species that cannot be divided into subspecies due to sharing a high degree of biological similarities. As a result, differences in monotypic species are largely considered irrelevant. I find this fact fascinating because so much of Western culture has been obsessed with constructing races on a premise of biological differences and as a consequence subjugating Black/Indigenous/POC folks even though humans are a ‘monotypic’ species by definition. One of my interests with this work is to explore movement qualities and colours with 3D imaging akin to things I remember from childhood and I set out to create a digital biome that can encapsulate an array of differences. Monotypic is informed by life above and below the ocean.

Omar David Rivero, also known as Driftnote, is a musician and multimedia artist born in Venezuela and currently based out of Tkaronto whose work is centered around improvisation, interactivity, audio and visual installations as well as 3D imaging. Rivero explores questions of materiality and embodiment when looking at systems, cultural erasure, and identity in the african/indigenous diaspora. Their research is situated in reassessing methodologies of image-making, archives, and self-portraiture.