Five Pacific artists selected for prestigious 2024 Sobey Art Award longlist
The award is considered one of the world’s most generous privately funded prizes for contemporary visual artists
Judy Chartrand, Indian Residential School Boys Praying We Get The Hell Out of Here, 2018. Low-fired clay, glaze, mixed-media, 50.8 × 139.7 × 47 cm. © Judy Chartrand. Photo courtesy of the artist
THE NATIONAL GALLERY of Canada and the Sobey Art Foundation have released the longlist for the 2024 Sobey Art Award, and five of the 30 artists are from the Pacific region. The Sobey Art Award is considered one of the world’s most generous privately funded prizes for contemporary visual artists.
Judy Chartrand is a contemporary artist of Manitoba Cree heritage who is based in Vancouver. Her art is held in public and private collections across the country and abroad, including the collections of the Glenbow Museum, SK Arts, the Gardiner Museum, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Through repurposed materials, her ceramic- and installation-based work uses the humour of appropriation along with a scathing cynicism to explore racism, ignorance, and privilege.
Sara Cwynar, Doll Index 1, 1779–1950 (installation view), 2023. Framed archival pigment print mounted to aluminum, 165.1 x 110.5 cm. © Sara Cwynar. Photo courtesy of the artist
Sara Cwynar is a Vancouver-born artist who lives and works in New York City and who holds a master of fine arts from Yale University and a bachelor of design from York University. Working in photography, video, and installation, she archives and re-presents collected visual materials. Recent projects include a commission for the Performa Biennial in New York City, S/S 23 at Foam in Amsterdam, Apple Red/Grass Green/Sky Blue at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and L’Image volée at Fondazione Prada in Milan. Her work can be found in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Later this year and next, Cwynar will have new solo exhibitions at 52 Walker in New York City and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.
Barry Doupé, Object Poems (installation view), 2017. Computer animation, dimensions variable. © Barry Doupé. Photo courtesy of the artist
Vancouver-based artist Barry Doupé works with computer animation, digital painting, and sculpture, using imagery and language derived from the subconscious, stemming from writing exercises and automatic drawing. His films have been shown across the country and internationally at venues such as the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Swallow in Lithuania, and DOK Leipzig in Germany.
Zoe Kreye, Well, beloved, it is that which we want to call the secret growing, 2023. Ink on cotton with voile applique, 71.1 × 101.6. © Zoe Kreye. Photo courtesy of Lulu Zhang, Equinox Gallery
Zoe Kreye’s interdisciplinary art has been shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Kamloops Art Gallery, and Southbank Centre in London. Her work explores transformation, collective experience, and the disembodiment of Western culture through immersive installation, performance, and tactile sculptures. Kreye has also produced several social-practice projects in Vancouver and Berlin.
Peter Morin, I like Taxidermy, Taxidermy likes us, 2017. Durational performance in the Brandon General Museum and Archives. © Peter Morin. Photo by Kevin Bertram
Peter Morin is of Crow Clan, Tahltan Nation ancestry through his mother and French-Canadian ancestry through his father. Born in Telegraph Creek, B.C., he focuses on his matrilineal inheritances in homage to the matriarchal structure of the Tahltan Nation, while also showcasing cross-ancestral collaborations. His work is centred on four themes: land/knowing, Indigenous grief/loss, community knowing, and understanding the creative agency/power of the Indigenous body. Morin, who uses performance art as a research methodology, is a tenured faculty member and graduate program director of the interdisciplinary master’s in art, media, and design at Toronto’s OCAD University.
Presented annually in celebration of contemporary Canadian visual artists of all ages, the Sobey Art Award was founded in 2002 and is jointly administered by the National Gallery of Canada and the Sobey Art Foundation. Five artists from six regions—Circumpolar, Pacific, Prairies, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic—are selected for the longlist. From here, the jury will meet and choose its shortlist, with one finalist from each region.
This year, a total of $465,000 in prize money will be awarded: $100,000 to the overall winner, $25,000 to each of the shortlisted artists, and $10,000 to the remaining long-listed artists. The six shortlisted artists will be featured in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada in the fall of 2024. 
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