This morning, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Sobey Art Foundation announced the five shortlisted artists for this year's Sobey Art Award, a coveted prize for Canada's contemporary artists under age 40.
A curatorial panel whittled down the longlist of 25 artists to come up with five, one from each region. The selected artists' work will be exhibited at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia beginning September 26. The five artists will compete for $100,000 in prize money ($50,000 going to the winner, $10,000 to each shortlisted finalist and $500 to the remaining longlisted artists). The winner of the top prize will be announced on the evening of October 28.
Our fingers are crossed for the Atlantic representative, Lisa Lipton, who is also the Centre for Art Tapes' local artist-in-residence and will be screening two of her short films, BLUE in The Impossible Blue Rose and Horizon—excerpts from her feature film, The Impossible Blue Rose—at this week's Halifax Independent Filmmakers' Festival (screening details below). Send good vibes—in the Sobey Art Awards' 11 years of awarding, an Atlantic artist has never taken the prize. This is our year!
The shortlisted artists are:
Atlantic : Lisa Lipton
Québec : Jon Rafman
Ontario : Abbas Akhavan
Prairies and the North : Sarah Anne Johnson
West Coast and the Yukon : Raymond Boisjoly