OCAD U faculty members win awards in their fields

JJ Lee

Faculty of Art Associate Professor JJ Lee is also the Acting Chair, Ada Slaight Contemporary Drawing and Painting. Lee won the silver medal at the National Magazine Awards in June, in the One of a Kind Storytelling category for her article, In My Yesterday.

In My Yesterday explores the art of uncovering Lee’s family’s immigration stories. The article was published in the June/July issue of Canada's History Magazine.

Lee is the recipient of several awards both for her individual work and her collaborative work with The Drawing Board, an award-winning collective with N. Waldburger and A. Swartz. Lee’s work is in public and private collections in Canada and the United States.

Alexander Manu

Faculty of Design Professor Alexander Manu is a part of Team Canada, which won Silver at the Continental Semi-Finals of the Bocuse d’Or in June. The Bocuse d’Or is the biennial world chef championship where the finals are akin to the Oscars of cookery talents.

Manu was appointed Resident Conceptual Designer with Chefs Canada in 2023. He and Industrial Design student Zack Schachter-Tribe collaborated to create the winning platter design. In his role, Manu works with Team Canada on plating and platter concepts as well as dishes using generative AI.

Manu is a strategic innovation practitioner, international lecturer and author. He has been invited to give over 600 keynote lectures in 27 countries, he has been a member of various advisory boards and consulted on foresight strategies, and in 1994, he was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) in recognition of his contribution to the development of design and visual arts in Canada.

Jody Hewgill

Faculty of Design Associate Professor Jody Hewgill received a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators in New York City for her painting Apollo, from her recent solo exhibition Novel Companions. The awards ceremony took place in March at the Museum of Illustration in New York City.

Hewgill notes that Apollo is her largest and most complex painting from her series, Novel Companions. For her, this was a passion project – a celebration of our enduring bond with dogs through fresh portrayals of literary canine characters. Several paintings from the series were also featured in Create! Magazine, issue #40.

Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States and Europe, and her paintings can be found in many collections, notably, the Library of Congress Permanent Poster Collection, the Centennial Olympic Games Museum in Atlanta, Rolling Stone Magazine’s corporate office and the US Postal Service.