Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory has won this year’s Sobey Art Award for emerging artists.
The Iqaluit-based Inuk multidisciplinary artist received the prize at a ceremony at the National Gallery of Canada on Saturday.
She is known for performing uaajeerneq, a Greenlandic mask dance that involves storytelling centred around three elements: fear, humour and sexuality.
Williamson Bathory says she uses her art to tell her own story and that of her family, which she says is one of “joy and celebration, awe and difficulty, beauty and destruction all at once.”
Williamson Bathory was chosen from a shortlist of five artists, each one representing a geographic region of Canada.
The Sobey Art Award celebrates emerging talent in the contemporary visual arts and is jointly administered by the Sobey Art Foundation and the National Gallery of Canada.
The winner receives a $100,000 prize, and each of the other shortlisted artists get $25,000.
Their works will also be displayed at the National Gallery until Feb. 20, 2022.
The 20 remaining longlisted artists are each awarded $10,000.
This is the first year that the prestigious award has been open to artists of all ages. Previously, only those 40 and under were eligible.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2021.
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