Image top L to R: Taqralik Partridge and Jessica Winters. Bottom L to R: Peter Morin and June Clark.
OCAD University congratulates four artists with OCAD U affiliations on being longlisted for the prestigious Sobey Art Award: Taqralik Partridge, Jessica Winters, Peter Morin and June Clark.
Taqralik Partridge is an artist, writer, spoken word poet, and curator from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik. Her work ᐳᓛᖃᑎᒌᑦ (Pulaaqatigiit) is currently on display at Onsite Gallery, OCAD U’s flagship professional art gallery. Her work is also part of the major beadwork exhibition Radical Stitch, on view at the National Gallery of Canada in 2024.
Inuk artist Jessica Winters’s work Hopedale was on view at OCAD U as part of Up Front: Inuit Public Art @ Onsite Gallery from January to April 2024. Winters is a painter, mixed-media artist, and curator from Makkovik, Nunatsiavut. She has been featured in numerous group shows, including Surfacing (2023) at Feheley Fine Arts in Toronto, and Coming into Sight: 50th Anniversary Art Bank Acquisitions (2023) at the Canada Council for the Arts in Ottawa.
Peter Morin is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Art, and Graduate Program Director of the Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design. Morin is of Crow Clan, Tahltan Nation ancestry through his mother, and French-Canadian ancestry through his father. In his work, he focuses on his matrilineal inheritances in homage to the matriarchal structure of the Tahltan Nation, while also prioritizing cross-ancestral collaborations.
Toronto-based artist June Clark is a past faculty member and was part of the Governing Council from 1991 to 1997. Clark has also completed a residency at OCAD U and has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem. She will have a solo survey exhibition at Toronto’s Power Plant in 2024 and will be included in the GTA24 Triennial at MOCA Toronto.
Next, six artists will be shortlisted from the longlist of 30. A total of $465,000 will be awarded: $100,000 to the overall winner, $25,000 to each of the shortlisted artists and $10,000 to the remaining longlisted artists. In addition, the shortlisted artists will be featured in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada in the fall of 2024.
In 2019, artist and OCAD U alum Stephanie Comilang was the overall winner of the Sobey Art Award and received Canada's most prestigious contemporary art prize worth $100,000.
Many OCAD U alums have been shortlisted and longlisted for the Sobey Art Award in recent years. In 2022, Drawing and Painting grad Stephanie Temma Hier and Material Art and Design Azza El Siddique made the longlist, and Siddique progressed to the shortlist. In 2021, among the longlist were grads Jawa El Khash, Esmaa Mohamoud, Rajni Perera and collective Faraz Anoushahpour, Parastoo Anoushahpour and Ryan Ferko. Drawing and Painting grad Perera made the shortlist that year. In 2023, alum Rouzbeh Akhbari made the longlist alongside his collaborator Felix Kalmenson.
The 2023 Sobey Art Award went to Kablusiak, whose work was on display as part of Up Front: Inuit Public Art at Onsite Gallery in 2022.
Learn more about the longlist for the 2024 Sobey Art Award.