Sobey Art Award Exhibition 2023

Powerful contemporary works by the five visual artists shortlisted for the 2023 Sobey Art Award—Canada’s preeminent contemporary art award—are on view at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) starting today. Admission to the exhibition is free on the Gallery’s popular Free Thursday Nights, supported by the Sobey Art Foundation (SAF) for the duration of the exhibition run. 

Organized by the NGC and the SAF, the 2023 Sobey Art Award Exhibition runs until March 3, 2024. This year’s award winner will be announced on Saturday, November 18, 2023, during a special celebration at the Gallery.

“On behalf of the board of the Sobey Art Foundation, a warm congratulations to each of the five finalists showing in the 2023 Sobey Art Award Exhibition,” said Rob Sobey, Chair of the Sobey Art Foundation’s Board of Turstees. “This year’s collection of works is compelling and thought-provoking, and we encourage the public to take this chance to see the powerful contemporary art being produced by some of the best from across the country right now.”

“The Sobey Art Award Exhibition is an important forum for visitors to encounter this country’s leading contemporary art voices. In addition to the exhibition, the Gallery is partnering with institutions in each artist’s region to provide the opportunity for Canadians to engage with these exceptional artists outside of the National Capital Region,” said Jonathan Shaughnessy, NGC’s Director, Curatorial Initiatives, and Chair of the 2023 Sobey Award Jury. “On behalf of the Gallery, immense thanks to the Sobey Art Foundation and the jury for their generous support.”

Senior Curator of the Photographs Collection at the NGC, and Lead Curator of the 2023 Sobey Art Award Exhibition, Andrea Kunard, said: “The installations featured in the exhibition are rooted in lived experience and reflect the finalists’ diverse backgrounds and unique ways of seeing, thinking and being in the world. The curatorial team has worked closely with each of this year’s finalists. We are delighted for the public to discover their works.”

The five shortlisted artists from West to East
Métis artist Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill (West Coast & Yukon) works across multiple media to draw out the political, historical, and personal contexts of everyday materials. M*****, 2023, examines the cyclical nature of parenting and reproduction through two looped 16 mm film projections. X-tend, 2021, and Spread, 2021, show tobacco ground and stuffed into pantyhose to form plush figures, a look at the plant’s evolution from an organic material to a consumer product. Curated by Jocelyn Piirainen, Associate Curator of Inuit Art, with the department Indigenous Ways and Decolonization at the NGC.

Kablusiak (Prairies & the North) is a multidisciplinary Inuvialuk artist and curator who uses innovative range of materials, Inuk ingenuity and humour to explore an array of themes, including dis/connections relating to the Inuit diaspora and the impacts of colonization on gender and sexuality. Recreating the well-known Ookpik snowy-owl doll, first made by Jeannie Snowball at the co-operative in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik (formerly from Quebec), Kablusiak invites viewers to (re)consider how Inuit art and artists are defined. Curated by Jocelyn Piirainen, Associate Curator of Indigenous Art, Indigenous Ways and Decolonization, NGC.

An artist and educator working in photography, video and installation, Michèle Pearson Clarke’s (Ontario) Quantum Choir, 2022, represents the discomfort of inexperienced singers, pointing to the deeper importance of kinship and community for queer masculine women as they navigate socio-political landscapes. Curated by Stephanie Burdzy, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, NGC.

Working between Canada and Iran, Anahita Norouzi’s (Québec) research-driven practice explores marginalized histories and the after-effects of colonial exploitation. A new installation, May You Break Free and Outlive Your Enemy, 2023, is a sculptural metaphor, with the displacement of plants and artifacts caused by archaeological excavation, botanical exploration and oil extraction in the Middle East evoking traces of the traumatic histories and lived experiences of the diaspora. Curated by Jasmine Inglis, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art and Photographs, NGC; and Euijung McGillis, Assistant Curator, Photographs, NGC.

Séamus Gallagher (Atlantic) casts a non-binary lens on identities and habitations, fabricating and layering multiple realities through virtual and actual collage techniques. Infusing queer aesthetics with self-portraiture, video games and surreal, wildly coloured setting, the A Slippery Place series, 2018 propose that normativity is the most brittle of constructions. Curated by Andrea Kunard, Senior Curator of the Photographs Collection, NGC.

With a total of 400,000 CAD in prize money awarded to Canadian visual artists of all ages, this is the preeminent award for contemporary visual artists in the country.

Media inquiries
Josée-Britanie Mallet, National Gallery of Canada, bmallet [​at​] gallery.ca