At least six artists from across Canada are in a celebratory mood today as they have been named finalists for the country’s top art prize, the Sobey Art Award, now in its 22nd year. It provides national recognition—including an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa from 3 October until 8 February 2026—as well as a whopping C$465,000 ($339,000) in prize money, among the richest rewards in art.
All of the shortlisted six, each representing a region of the vast land, will pocket C$25,000 ($18,000). They are Tarralik Duffy (representing the Circumpolar region), Tania Willard (from the Pacific region), Chukwudubem Ukaigwe (Prairies region), Sandra Brewster (Ontario), Swapnaa Tamhane (Quebec) and Hangama Amiri (Atlantic region). The eventual winner, who will take home C$100,000 ($73,000), will be announced on 8 November during an evening celebration at the National Gallery of Canada. Each of the 24 longlisted artists not among the select six will receive C$10,000 ($7,300).
“I extend our warmest congratulations to the six exceptional artists who have been named to this year’s Sobey Art Award shortlist,” Rob Sobey, the chair of the Sobey Art Foundation, said in a statement. “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.”
Jonathan Shaughnessy, the director of curatorial initiatives at the National Gallery and chair of the 2025 Sobey Award jury, saluted the six for their efforts in these topsy-turvy times, with Canadians celebrating their uniqueness while hardly seeking statehood.
“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,” Shaughnessy said.
The finalists were chosen by a jury that included the 2021 Sobey winner Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory; the Richmond Art Gallery curator Zoë Chan; the director and curator of Regina’s Dunlop Art Gallery Alyssa Fearon; the senior curator at the McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton Betty Julian; the curator of Quebec and Canadian contemporary art at theMontreal Museum of Fine Arts Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre; the contemporary art curator and writer based in Maberly, Newfoundland and Labrador, Rose Bouthillier; and international juror Carla Acevedo-Yates, a curator, writer and researcher working across the Americas. The selected artists reflect a wide range of thematic, material and formal practices.
Duffy is a multidisciplinary artist and designer from Salliq, Nunavut, which is on Southampton Island at the entrance to Hudson Bay. Duffy uses media including drawing, photography, sculpture, textiles, printmaking and salvaged materials to explore contemporary Inuit culture and pop culture.
Willard, a mixed Secwépemc and settler artist from the interior of British Columbia, uses land-based art to promote Indigenous resurgence through collaborative projects like Bush Gallery and language revitalisation in Secwépemc communities.
The Nigerian-born Ukaigwe is an artist, curator and writer who studied at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and is influenced by experimental music, literature, history and futurism. He aims to create audiovisual environments that examine subject-object divides and fracture time and relativity.
The Toronto-based Brewster is the daughter of Guyanese parents. Her practice reflects a multilayered sense of identity and spans sculpture, installation, photography and more.
Tamhane was an artist-in-residence at Concordia University in Montreal from 2022 to 2024. She uses materials such as cotton and jute to produce handmade paper, archival research and textile installations. She also collaborates with artisans in Gujarat, India.
Amiri, who spent the early years of her life in Kabul, 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 its diaspora.
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