TORONTO — Blue Ant Media’s Makeful TV announced the winner of the first season of its Landscape Artist of the Year Canada series is Nelson Cheng, one of the 50 wildcard walk-on artists who participated in the competition along with 18 professional and amateur artists.
Landscape Artist of the Year Canada premiered Sunday, February 16 exclusively on Makeful TV during the channel’s eight-week free preview running from February 3 to April 5 across Canada.
Hundreds of artists applied across the country to take part in the series and 18 were chosen to portray some of Canada’s most iconic landscapes. In addition, each round, groups of walk-on artists at every level of experience were invited to compete as wildcards and each week the judges picked just one to go through to the next round.
In the finale, Cheng was chosen as the standout wildcard to participate in the final challenge alongside six professional and amateur finalists who had made it to the final round. In the final episode of the four-part series, filmed at Lake Rosseau, a famous Canadian landmark known for the Group of Seven, Cheng beat out finalists Elzbieta Krawecka, Andrew Cheddie Sookrah, Denise Antaya, Tosh Jeffrey, Deborah Danelley and Mackenzie Brown.
Nelson’s winning artwork will be available for public viewing at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, in the Founders’ Lounge, from March 9 to April 19. His work will be displayed on an easel once belonging to Tom Thomson and subsequently used by A.Y. Jackson alongside a framed vinyl display explaining the work’s presence to the public.
Yesterday’s final episode of Landscape Artist of the Year Canada encores Tuesday, March 10 at 8 p.m. on Makeful, and the entire series will repeat in a marathon on Sunday, March 15 starting at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT. The series will also air Thursday nights at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, beginning March 12 on Blue Ant’s Cottage Life TV.
Landscape Artist of the Year Canada is produced by marblemedia, in association with Blue Ant Media and CBC. Based on the UK format, it is distributed by Banijay Rights, and was originally produced by Storyvault Films. Carly Spencer is the series producer with Matt Hornburg and Mark Bishop serving as executive producers. Graeme Lynch is the director and Spencer is the story editor. Overseeing the series for Makeful TV is Sam Linton, head of original content for Blue Ant Media. CBC will air the series later this year.
