Sobey Art Award 2025: Canadian Artists Celebrated

Jonathan Shaughnessy, the director of curatorial campaigns at the National Gallery and chair of the 2025 Sobey Award court, admired the six for their efforts in these chaotic times, with Canadians celebrating their originality while hardly looking for statehood.

“Through paints, illustrations, fabrics, video, sculpture and multidisciplinary setups, their works record the vitality of artmaking in this country today while touching on subjects significant to contemporary Canadian identification,” Shaughnessy said.

Duffy is a multidisciplinary artist and designer from Salliq, Nunavut, which is on Southampton Island at the entryway to Hudson Bay. Duffy utilizes media including drawing, digital photography, sculpture, fabrics, printmaking and recovered materials to explore modern Inuit society and pop culture.

Tamhane was an artist-in-residence at Concordia College in Montreal from 2022 to 2024. She utilizes materials such as cotton and hemp to produce hand-made paper, historical study and textile installations. She likewise collaborates with craftsmens in Gujarat, India.

Willard, a mixed Secwépemc and settler musician from the inside of British Columbia, uses land-based art to promote Native rebirth through collective jobs like Bush Gallery and language revitalisation in Secwépemc neighborhoods.

2025 Sobey Art Award Finalists

A minimum of 6 artists from across Canada remain in a congratulatory mood today as they have been called finalists for the nation’s top art reward, the Sobey Art Honor, now in its 22nd year. It supplies national acknowledgment– including an event at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa from 3 October till 8 February 2026– as well as a tremendous C$ 465,000 ($ 339,000) in prize money, amongst the richest incentives in art.

Regional Representatives and Prizes

All of the shortlisted six, each standing for a region of the large land, will pocket C$ 25,000 ($ 18,000). They are Tarralik Duffy (standing for the Circumpolar region), Tania Willard (from the Pacific area), Chukwudubem Ukaigwe (Prairies region), Sandra Brewster (Ontario), Swapnaa Tamhane (Quebec) and Hangama Amiri (Atlantic region). The eventual victor, who will certainly take home C$ 100,000 ($ 73,000), will be revealed on 8 November throughout an evening celebration at the National Gallery of Canada. Each of the 24 longlisted musicians not amongst the pick six will certainly obtain C$ 10,000 ($ 7,300).

Every one of the shortlisted 6, each standing for an area of the vast land, will pocket C$ 25,000 ($ 18,000). They are Tarralik Duffy (standing for the Circumpolar area), Tania Willard (from the Pacific area), Chukwudubem Ukaigwe (Prairies region), Sandra Brewster (Ontario), Swapnaa Tamhane (Quebec) and Hangama Amiri (Atlantic region). The ultimate victor, that will take home C$ 100,000 ($ 73,000), will be revealed on 8 November throughout an evening event at the National Gallery of Canada. Each of the 24 longlisted musicians not among the select six will receive C$ 10,000 ($ 7,300).

Hangama Amiri’s Fabric Art

Amiri, who spent the early years of her life in Kabul, functions predominantly in fabrics, checking out ideas of home and just how gender, social standards and geopolitical dispute impact the daily lives of ladies in Afghanistan and its diaspora.

“I prolong our hottest congratulations to the 6 exceptional musicians who have actually been named to this year’s Sobey Art Honor shortlist,” Rob Sobey, the chair of the Sobey Art Foundation, said in a statement. “We are exceptionally honored to support their impressive achievements and look forward to celebrating their ongoing contributions to the Canadian modern aesthetic arts landscape in the months ahead.”

Jury’s Selection Process

The finalists were chosen by a court that included the 2021 Sobey victor Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory; the Richmond Art Gallery curator Zoë Chan; the director and manager of Regina’s Dunlop Art Gallery Alyssa Fearon; the elderly manager at the McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton Betty Julian; the manager of Quebec and Canadian contemporary art at theMontreal Museum of Fine Arts Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre; the contemporary art curator and author based in Maberly, Newfoundland and Labrador, Rose Bouthillier; and international juror Carla Acevedo-Yates, a author, manager and researcher working across the Americas. The picked artists show a wide range of thematic, product and formal practices.

The Nigerian-born Ukaigwe is a musician, writer and manager that researched at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and is influenced by experimental songs, literary works, history and futurism. He intends to produce audiovisual settings that check out subject-object splits and fracture time and relativity.