Five artists shortlisted for 2023 Sobey Art Award

Five artists, representing that number of regions of Canada, are now in contention for one of the most prestigious art prizes in the country.

The Nova Scotia-based Sobey Art Foundation and the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) announced the five nominees for the 2023 Sobey Art Award on Wednesday. The shortlisted artists will vie for a first prize of $100,000, to be awarded in November at the NGC in Ottawa.

“The breadth of practices this year represents the multi-faceted texture and strength of contemporary artistic talent in this country,” said Jonathan Shaughnessy, NGC’s director of curatorial initiatives and chair of the Sobey Award jury. “The work of the five finalists present views on many urgent matters of our time, including 2SLGBTQ+ solidarities and representation, as well as critical questions regarding diasporic experience and Canadian identity.”

From east to west, the nominees are as follows:

From Moncton and currently living in Halifax, Seamus Gallagher is a lens-based artist who infuses queer aesthetics with self-portraiture. Outside of photography and video, the graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and recipient of the 2022 Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award generally works with a video-game engine to create virtual-reality art projects.

1A Slippery Place 1, 2019, inkjet print.Handout

Montreal-based Anahita Norouzi is a research-driven multidisciplinary artist whose practice is inspired by marginalized histories, botanical explorations and archeological excavations. The Tehran native and Concordia University graduate regularly travels between Iran and Canada to conduct her research.

What It is in a Name, 2022, 11 glass sculptures of mutated irises.Paul Litherland/Handout

Michèle Pearson Clarke is a former photo laureate of Toronto whose work often focuses on Black and queer experiences of longing and loss. Born in Trinidad, she holds a master of social work from the University of Toronto and is an assistant professor of photography at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Counterblaste (installation view), 2021, pantyhose, tobacco, beer can tabs, plastic flowers, dried flowers, earring beaded by Cheryl L'Hirondelle Hill, thread, charms, running shoes, rabbit-fur earrings, nail polish, variable.La Biennale di Venezia/Handout

Representing the Prairies and the North, Inuvialuk artist and curator Kablusiak creates work in a variety of mediums, including, but not limited to, lingerie, flour, soapstone, bed sheets and acrylic paint. The work from the Yellowknife-born, Calgary-based artist explores the Inuit diaspora and the effects of colonization on Inuit gender and sexuality expressions.

Nuyaq I and Nuyaq II, 2021, 1: artist's mother’s hair | hide uppers, artificial sinew + gifted crushed velvet 2: artist's hair | hide uppers, artificial sinew + gifted crushed velvet.Philip Kanwischer courtesy of Norberg Hall/Handout

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill is a Métis artist and writer whose sculptural practice explores the history of found materials and challenges the notion of the city as a settled place. Exploring the concepts of land, property and economy, she incorporates such detritus as beer-can tabs, dollar-store lockets and dandelions into sculptures and works on paper she calls “spells.” The artist was born in Comox, B.C., and lives in Vancouver.

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill.Aaron Leon/Handout

Quantum Choir, 2022, our-channel 4k video installation (colour, sound, 12:46), soccer balls, and training cones, 16 x 16'.Yuula Benivolski/Handout

Created in 2002 by the Sobey Art Foundation, the juried prize is awarded annually to an artist who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated, and who first landed on a long list of 25 nominees announced in April.

While the winner takes home $100,000, each runner-up will receive $25,000; each of the other 20 longlisted artists will be awarded $10,000. The NGC’s exhibition of works by the five finalists opens Oct. 13 and runs through March 3, 2024.

Winnipeg’s Divya Mehra won the Sobey in 2022. Her work, which often uses whimsy to comment on colonial cultural relationships, includes the Taj Mahal imagined as a bouncy castle.