Nico Williams Named As 2024 Sobey Art Award Winner
Nico Williams (photo by Cory Hunlin, courtesy of Sobey Art Award)
Nico Williams has been named as the winner of the 2024 Sobey Art Award.
The $100,000 award is Canada's biggest prize for contemporary visual arts.
The announcement was made Saturday, Nov. 9 at the National Gallery of Canada.
“The jury felt compelled to recognize the undeniable energy and pertinence of Nico Williams’ approach to contemporary sculptural beadwork that allows us to imagine new possibilities for the medium,” said Jonathan Shaughnessy, the 2024 Sobey Award Jury Chair and Director, Curatorial Initiatives, National Gallery of Canada.
“His impeccably precise artworks transform everyday objects to the level of the spectacular and weave personal experiences into broadly relatable narratives. Working with and through community, Williams’ practice challenges the persistence of colonial legacies through the surfacing of collective memory and shared nostalgias.”
Williams lives in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, Québec and is a member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation (Anishinaabe) He holds a master of fine arts in Sculpture from Concordia University. In 2021, he was awarded the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art. His work is found in private and public collections including Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Archives Nationales du Québec, the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation and the Royal Bank of Canada Art Collection.
“Ten years ago, one of the most influential role models, Nadia Myre, received this prize. I want to send out the same message to all the bush kids out there: we are doing it!,” Williams said.
“ Also, I am extremely grateful to all the people who have stood behind my practice since the very beginning. I wouldn’t be where I am today without you. Chi-miigwech!”
The other shortlisted artists – Taqralik Partridge, Judy Chartrand, Rhayne Vermette, June Clark and Mathieu Léger – will each receive $25,000, according to the news release.
The long list was announced in April 2024.
Williams was selected as the winner by a jury that, for the first time ever, was comprised of six Canadian artists, all former Sobey Art Award finalists or winners, plus one international juror. The jury included: asinnajaq (Circumpolar); Jeremy Shaw (Pacific); Divya Mehra (Prairies); Stephanie Comilang (Ontario); Caroline Monnet (Québec); Mario Doucette (Atlantic); and Zoé Whitley, Director, Chisenhale Gallery, UK (International).
Also for the first time ever, this year's awards were expanded to include the circumpolar region, a region includes Nunavut, northern Quebec, Labrador, Yukon and NWT.
Sobey Art Award prize money now totals $465,000. Funded by the Sobey Art Foundation, it is the richest award in contemporary visual arts in Canada and is one of the most generous art prizes in the world.
Source: National Gallery of Canada
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