Strong BIPOC Representation on Sobey Short List
BIPOC artists from across Canada filled the short list for this year's $100,000 Sobey Art Award.
They are Krystle Silverfox (West Coast and Yukon), Divya Mehra (Prairies and the North), Azza El Siddique (Ontario), Stanley Février (Quebec) and Tyshan Wright (Atlantic).
The winner will be announced at a gala ceremony at the National Gallery of Canada this fall in conjunction with an exhibition by the winner and the other four finalists, who each receive $25,000.
Silverfox is a member of the Selkirk First Nation (Wolf Clan). She currently lives and works on the territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in in Dawson City, Yukon. She has an MFA in interdisciplinary studies from Simon Fraser University and is inspired by Indigenous feminism, transnationalism, decolonialism, activism and her lived experiences.
Mehra's work deals primarily with her own diasporic experiences and historical narratives. She incorporates found artifacts and ready-made objects as active signifiers of resistance, or as reminders of the difficult realities of displacement, loss, neutrality and oppression. She has an MFA from Columbia University in New York City.
El Siddique, who received an MFA from the Yale School of Art, has been included in exhibitions at MOCA Toronto and the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. She will open a solo exhibition later this month at the MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Février was a social worker before becoming a full-time multidisciplinary artist. He holds a master's degree in visual and media arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal and has exhibited his work across Canada and around the world.
Wright, who has roots in the historical Maroon Town of Accompong in Jamaica, creates mixed-media representations of Jamaican Maroon instruments and ceremonial objects, examining the expulsion of Maroons from Jamaica to Halifax in 1796.
The jury was chaired by Sasha Suda, the director and chief executive of the National Gallery of Canada, who announced yesterday her resignation to become director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in September.
"I’m impressed by the strength and vision offered by each of these shortlisted artists," Suda said in a statement.
The award, a career catalyst for visual artists of all ages, was launched in 2002. It is funded by the Sobey Art Foundation and organized and presented by the National Gallery of Canada. Previous winners include Brian Jungen, Annie Pootoogook, Duane Linklater, Kipwani Kiwanga, Stephanie Comilang and last year’s winner, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory.
Source: National Gallery of Canada
