On Saturday, Tania Willard, a mixed Secwépemc and settler artist based in Neskonlith, British Columbia, was named the winner of the annual Sobey Art Award, which comes with CAD$100,000 ($71,000). The announcement took place at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
The award was launched in 2002 by the Sobey Art Foundation in order to promote and support contemporary Canadian artists. The five shortlisted artists—Tarralik Duffy, Chukwudubem Ukaigwe, Sandra Brewster, Swapnaa Tamhane, and Hangama Amiri—will receive CAD$25,000 ($17,800) each.
Willard’s artistic and curatorial practice is land-based and community-focused. Her work “center[s] art as an Indigenous resurgent act,” according to a statement on her website.
She is included in the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Forge Project, the Kamloops Art Gallery, and the Anchorage Museum. Willard’s site-specific installation Declaration of the Understory is on view at Bentway Staging Grounds, a temporary public art space under an expressway overpass in Toronto, through spring 2026. The piece, which was co-commissioned by the Bentway and the Indigenous Curatorial Collective, transformed the concrete space into a forested canopy and also features light projections and text-based works.
As a way to guarantee geographic diversity, the Sobey Art Foundation appointed jurors from each region of Canada: artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (Circumpolar), curator Zoë Chan (Pacific), curator/director Alyssa Fearon (Prairies), curator Betty Julian (Ontario), curator Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre (Quebec), and curator/writer Rose Bouthillier (Newfoundland and Labrador), along with curator/writer Carla Acevedo-Yates, who has an international focus.
Twenty-two Canadian artists have won he Sobey Art Award. Some of the most high-profile winners include Annie Pootoogook (2006), David Altmejd (2009), Duane Linklater (2013), and Kapwani Kiwanga (2018).
Paintings, drawings, textiles, videos, sculptures, and installations by this year’s finalists and winner are on view the National Gallery of Canada through Feb. 8. 2026.
