5 emerging artists vie for $50K Sobey Art Award

Five Canadian contemporary artists have been named to the short list for the Sobey Art Award, a $50,000 prize aimed at exposing emerging talent.

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Halifax-based Sobey Art Foundation made the announcement on Thursday, with one artist chosen from five regions across Canada. To be eligible, artists must be 40 years old or younger.

The 2013 nominees are:

• West Coast and the Yukon: Isabelle Pauwels of New Westminster, B.C.
• Prairies and the North: Mark Clintberg of Alberta.
• Ontario: Duane Linklater of North Bay, Ont.
• Quebec: Pascal Grandmaison of Montreal.
• Atlantic: Tamara Henderson of Sackville, N.B.

Pauwels is primarily a video artist who reconfigures popular genres like the sitcom, home movie or documentary. She has exhibited at Volker Bradke in Dusseldorf, Western Front in Vancouver, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto.

Clintberg is an artist, writer and curator currently studying for a PhD in art history in Montreal. He has held solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton, the Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Calgary and Trap\door in Lethbridge and will be artist in residence on Fogo Island, N.L. in 2013.

Worked with Brian Jungen

Linklater isan Omaskeko Cree, from Moose Cree First Nation in Northern Ontario. His work includes video and film installations, performance art and sculpture. Modest Livelihood, his collaborative film project with native artist and past Sobey-winner Brian Jungen, was presented at The Banff Centre in collaboration with the Documenta (13) art festival.

Grandmaison is known for his large-scale photographs, film and video. He has exhibited extensively in Canada and Europe. In 2006, his solo exhibition at the Muse d'art contemporain de Montral also toured to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Henderson's practice is based on dreamlike recordings drawn from hypnosis, nocturnal fieldwork and altered states. She createssculpture, furniture, film sets and 16mm films and has exhibited atGermany's Documenta (13), Western Front in Vancouver and Walter Philips Gallery in Banff.

Work by the shortlisted artists will be shown in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, opening on Sept. 13. The winner will be announced at the AGNS on Oct. 9.

In addition to the $50,000 first prize, each finalist earns $5,000. Previous winners of the Sobey Art Award include Annie Pootoogook, David Altmejd and artistic team Daniel Young and Christian Giroux.