Six finalists announced for Canada's most established contemporary visual arts prize
OTTAWA, ON, June 3, 2025 /CNW/ - Six of Canada's most compelling contemporary visual artists have been shortlisted for the 2025 Sobey Art Award, Canada's most established contemporary visual arts prize since 2002. Today, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) and the Sobey Art Foundation (SAF) are excited to unveil their names. They are:
Tarralik Duffy for the Circumpolar region. A multidisciplinary artist and designer from Salliq, Nunavut, Duffy uses various mediums like drawing, photography, sculpture, textiles, printmaking, and salvaged materials to explore contemporary Inuit culture and pop culture.
Tania Willard for the Pacific region. Willard, a mixed Secwépemc and settler artist, uses land-based art to promote Indigenous resurgence through collaborative projects like BUSH Gallery and language revitalization in Secwépemc communities.
Chukwudubem Ukaigwe for the Prairies region. Born in Nigeria, Ukaigwe is an artist, curator, and writer influenced by experimental music, literature, history, and futurism. His work aims to create immersive audiovisual environments, examining subject-object divides and fracturing time and relativity.
Sandra Brewster for the Ontario region. The child of Guyanese parents, Brewster is a Toronto-based Canadian artist. Her practice reflects a multilayered sense of identity, born of a collision between place and time.
Swapnaa Tamhane for the Quebec region. Tamhane's practice is dedicated to materials such as cotton and jute, leading to the making of handmade paper, archival research, and textile installations. She also collaborates closely with artisans in Gujarat, India, in a skill-sharing process.
Hangama Amiri for the Atlantic region. Amiri works predominantly in textiles, examining notions of home, and how gender, social norms, and geopolitical conflict affect the daily lives of women in Afghanistan and the diaspora. The figurative tendency in her work reflects her interest in the power of representation, especially through everyday objects such as passports, vases, and celebrity postcards.
"On behalf of the Sobey Art Foundation, I extend our warmest congratulations to the six exceptional artists who have been named to this year's Sobey Art Award shortlist. We are incredibly proud to support their remarkable achievements and look forward to celebrating their ongoing contributions to the Canadian contemporary visual arts landscape in the months ahead," said Rob Sobey, Chair, Sobey Art Foundation.
"Congratulations to the six outstanding artists shortlisted for the 2025 Sobey Art Award," said Jonathan Shaughnessy, Director, Curatorial Initiatives, National Gallery of Canada; and Chair, 2025 Sobey Award Jury. "Through paintings, drawings, textiles, video, sculpture and multidisciplinary installations, their works capture the vitality of artmaking in this country today while touching on subjects pertinent to contemporary Canadian identity. We're excited to work with each of these artists and bring their richly diverse material practices together this fall for the always highly anticipated Sobey Award exhibition."
A total of $465,000, in prize money will be awarded, including the $100,000 grand prize. Each of the shortlisted artists receives $25,000 and each of the remaining longlisted artists receives $10,000. The winner of the award will be announced at a special celebration on November 8, 2025. An exhibition featuring works by the six shortlisted artists will be held at the Gallery, opening on October 3, 2025, and running until February 8, 2026.
The jury
This year's independent jury overseeing the longlist selection process and shortlist deliberations is made up of contemporary arts curators and a past winner of the Sobey Art Award, with representation from each of the regions, as well as an international juror. They are: Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, winner of the 2021 Sobey Art Award, for the Circumpolar region; Zoë Chan, curator, Richmond Art Gallery, Pacific region; Alyssa Fearon, Director/Curator, Dunlop Art Gallery, Prairies; Betty Julian; Senior Curator, McMaster Museum of Art, Ontario; Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre, Curator of Quebec and Canadian Contemporary Art, Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec; Rose Bouthillier, contemporary art curator and writer based in Maberly, Newfoundland and Labrador, Atlantic; and Carla Acevedo-Yates, curator, writer and researcher working across the Americas, international juror.
For more information on the 2025 shortlisted and longlisted artists, please visit: https://www.gallery.ca/whats-on/sobey-art-award
About the Sobey Art Award
The Sobey Art Award (SAA) is Canada's preeminent prize for Canadian contemporary visual artists. Created in 2002 with funding from the Sobey Art Foundation (SAF), the SAA has helped to propel the careers of artists through financial support and recognition in Canada and beyond. The SAA has been jointly administered by the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) and SAF since 2016.
The past SAA winners are: Brian Jungen (2002), Jean-Pierre Gauthier (2004), Annie Pootoogook (2006), Michel de Broin (2007), Tim Lee (2008), David Altmejd (2009), Daniel Barrow (2010), Daniel Young and Christian Giroux (2011), Raphaëlle de Groot (2012), Duane Linklater (2013), Nadia Myre (2014), Abbas Akhavan (2015), Jeremy Shaw (2016), Ursula Johnson (2017), Kapwani Kiwanga (2018), Stephanie Comilang (2019), Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (2021), Divya Mehra (2022), Kablusiak (2023) and Nico Williams (2024).
About the Sobey Art Foundation
The Sobey Art Foundation was established in 1981 by the late Frank H. Sobey who was a dedicated collector of Canadian art. The Sobey Art Award was founded in 2002 as privately funded prizes for Canadian contemporary visual artists. The award aims to promote new developments in contemporary visual art and attract national and international attention to Canadian artists.
About the National Gallery of Canada
Founded in 1880, the National Gallery of Canada is among the world's most respected art institutions. As a national museum, we exist to serve all Canadians, no matter where they live. We do this by sharing our collection, exhibitions and public programming widely. We create dynamic experiences that allow for new ways of seeing ourselves and each other through the visual arts, while centering Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Our mandate is to develop, preserve and present a collection for the learning and enjoyment of all – now and for generations to come. We are home to more than 90,000 works, including one of the finest collections of Indigenous and Canadian art, major works from the 14th to the 21st century and extensive library and archival holdings.
Ankosé – Everything is connected – Tout est relié
SOURCE National Gallery of Canada
For media inquiries, please contact: Josée-Britanie Mallet, Senior Officer, Media and Public Relations, National Gallery of Canada, [email protected]; Pénélope Carreau, Officer, Public Relations, National Gallery of Canada, [email protected]
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