Phil Comeau receives an arts award from the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick

A ceremony was held Friday evening in Fredericton for the presentation of the Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts in New Brunswick. Phil Comeau, Valerie Sherrard, Marshall Button and Tara Francis are the winners.

The quartet was announced in September by ArtsNB, but it was Friday evening in the presence of the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick, Brenda Murphy, that these awards of excellence for the visual, literary, performing arts and Indigenous art were officially handed over.

New Brunswick Minister of Tourism, Heritage and Culture, Isabelle Thériault, was present.

Acadian filmmaker Phil Comeau was awarded the Visual Arts Prize. Originally from Baie Sainte-Marie, he has directed around a hundred films, television shows, fiction and documentaries in his career.

The history of Acadia and its culture are at the heart of his work and his films have helped to bring the history of the Acadians to an international audience.

Particularly thanks to the short film Belle-Île-en-Mer, which earned a Guinness World Record in 2023 for the greatest number of awards won by a documentary.

Indigenous theatre, literature and art

The Indigenous Artist of the Year award was presented to Tara Francis, an internationally renowned Mi’kmaw visual artist from the Elsipogtog First Nation.

Her contemporary art is inspired by traditional technique and teaching and the relationship she maintains with her ancestors.

Among other things, she works on embroidery with porcupine picks.

The Performing Arts Award was given to Marshall Button, an actor, director and playwright from Dalhousie with a career spanning more than 44 years.

He is well known, among other things, for his character Lucien, a New Brunswick factory worker with fairly strong ideas. The five plays of this character have been performed more than 2,500 times across the country and internationally.

Finally, Valerie Sherrard won the Literary Arts Prize. The internationally renowned English-speaking author is originally from Saskatchewan and has lived in Miramichi since 1980.

She has written numerous children’s literature books and has worked actively to encourage literacy among young people in the province. His works are influenced by the people and communities of New Brunswick.