Outstanding BC Applied Artists and Designers Honoured With Awards

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Sept. 22, 2016) - Premier Christy Clark and British Columbia Achievement Foundation Chair Keith Mitchell are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2016 Carter Wosk BC Creative Achievement Awards for Applied Art and Design.

"With their bold creations, British Columbians continue to make a name for themselves in applied art and design," said Premier Clark. "The 2016 Carter Wosk BC Creative Achievement award winners are not only heirs to a great tradition of BC art and design, but are also succeeding in raising the bar even higher."

Recipients of the 12^th annual awards are selected by jury and include:

• Form3 Design Inc., Product Innovation and Industrial Design

• Mel Munsen, Glass Artist

• Lukas Peet, Industrial Design, Lighting, Public art

The awards will be presented later this fall at a formal ceremony at Shaw Studios in Vancouver.

"The Carter Wosk Awards in Applied Art and Design honour excellence which highlights the intersection of creativity and commerce," Mitchell said. "Showcasing the best of BC's applied art and design community, the 2016 awardees exemplify the beauty of functional art through their unique innovation and outstanding technique."

The 2016 jury included Sam Carter, Professor Emeritus at Emily Carr University of Art and Design; Omer Arbel, designer, sculptor, materials researcher and 2008 Carter Wosk Award winner; Jane Kidd, textile artist and 2016 Saidye Bronfman Award recipient and Shawn Place, furniture designer and 2011 Carter Wosk Award winner.

The Carter Wosk Awards are named in honour of BC philanthropist, academic and visionary Yosef Wosk, Ph.D., OBC whose financial support made these awards possible and for Sam Carter, BC educator, designer and curator.

The British Columbia Achievement Foundation is an independent foundation established and endowed by the Province of BC in 2003 to celebrate community service, arts, humanities and enterprise. For information on the British Columbia Achievement Foundation, visit www.bcachievement.com.

BACKGROUNDER:

Form3 Design Inc., Product Innovation and Industrial Design

Form3 is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Since 1997 the team has worked closely with many clients, across a wide range of industry sectors, who share their passion for great design. Form3's goal is to create products of substance that are more desirable, useful, and sustainable. Their work overcomes technical challenges, improves user experience, and adds value for businesses. Gaining insights from different projects expands their knowledge base allowing them to cross-pollinate ideas, appealing to companies and entrepreneurs looking for innovative solutions to challenging problems. Projects in areas of consumer electronics, sport and fitness, medical, and green technology have accumulated over 40 successfully issued design and utility patents held in North America and Europe.

Teamwork and attention to detail have contributed to getting many products successfully into production and reaching the marketplace. A valuable mix of creative abilities and technical expertise helps entrepreneurs and small businesses address substantial challenges due to limited manufacturing volumes and lack of funding. Several high technology companies and adventure sports manufacturers that Form3 has worked with have evolved into market leaders with strong, internationally recognized, visual brands.

Mel Munsen, Glass Artist

Mel Munsen is a master of fused glass, a technique demanding artistic sensitivity, painstaking work and a thorough understanding of his chosen material. For each piece, Munsen cuts coloured glass rod into thousands of pieces and re-assembles them in a pattern on a platter. The pieces are then fused together in a kiln, with the resulting sheet of glass then sanded and polished on a horizontal lapidary wheel to a thickness of about 1/8". The final step involves heating the sheet several times in a kiln and slumping it into progressively smaller moulds until the final vase or bowl shape is achieved.

Over the past 20 years, Munsen's exceptional art glass has been shown in Victoria galleries. He also has an international profile abroad where he has exhibited and sold work in museums and galleries in Canada, the United States, Italy, Japan and Korea.

Lukas Peet: Industrial Design, Lighting, Public Art

Lukas Peet left his native Canada in 2005 to attend the prestigious industrial design program at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Since returning to Vancouver after his graduation in 2009, Peet has been practicing his craft with an aesthetic maturity and fluidity that has commanded attention. As owner of lukas/peet design studio and co-owner of ANDlight, a Vancouver-based decorative lighting company, his work has been recognized with a number of awards including the inaugural RBC Emerging Designer Award in 2014. In addition, Peet has been widely published, exhibited internationally and showcased with his first solo exhibition at Toronto's Design Exchange. His designs have been produced by international manufacturers such as Roll & Hill, Umbra Shift, and Karakter and local manufacturer ANDlight. Peet brings a vast curiosity about objects, processes, materials and production techniques to his work while supporting his desire to challenge the familiar and the normative, and everything in between.