Sobey Art Award longlist announced

The longlisted artists for the $50,000 Sobey Art Award—Canada’s pre-eminent contemporary art award—have been announced and of course we are celebrating extremely hard on behalf of the five Atlantic artists: Eleanor King, Graeme Patterson, Lisa Lipton, Melanie Colosimo and Ursula Johnson (complete list of artists below).

The prize is given annually to an artist aged 40 or under who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated. A $50,000 prize will be awarded to the Sobey Art Award winner, along with a $10,000 prize to each of the shortlisted artists, and a $500 prize to each of the remaining longlisted artists.

This is the award’s 14th year, and in case anyone out there is listening, an Atlantic artist has NEVER WON the Sobey Art Award. And yet we are the only region to call all plastic bags “Sobeys bags”. Anyway, I’ve said it before but I have a good feeling about this year.

ATLANTIC
Eleanor King
Graeme Patterson
Lisa Lipton
Melanie Colosimo
Ursula Johnson

QUEBEC
Annie Baillargeon
Dan Brault
Jacynthe Carrier
Kim Waldron
Ludovic Boney

ONTARIO
Bridget Moser
Erika DeFreitas
Jean-Paul Kelly
Nadia Belerique
Sameer Farooq

PRAIRIES & THE NORTH
Amy Malbeuf
Divya Mehra
Erica Eyres
Kara Uzelman
The Ephemerals

WEST COAST & YUKON
Babak Golkar
James Nizam
Jeneen Frei Njootli
Raymond Boisjoly
Rebecca Brewer

The shortlist of five artists will be announced  June 6, and the winner will be announced October 25 in Toronto. Trust me, I shall be hitting the Canadian art meme accounts hard this afternoon.

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This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2017.