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Swapnaa Tamhane named to Canada's Sobey Art Award longlist
The six shortlisted artists for this year’s Sobey Art Award will be announced on Jun.3, with their works slated to be showcased at the National Gallery of Canada in the fall.
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Pranavi Sharma - Thu, 17, Apr 2025
- 22:56 EDT
- 255
Swapnaa Tamhane / Instagram
Indian artist, curator, and writer Swapnaa Tamhane has been named to the long list for the 2025 Sobey Art Award, one of Canada’s most prestigious prizes for contemporary art. The announcement, made on Apr.16, places Tamhane among 30 artists selected from six regions across the country, each vying for the $100,000 top honour.
Born in Toronto and currently based in Montreal, Tamhane’s inclusion is a recognition of her thoughtful and boundary-pushing practice, which seeks to untangle colonial legacies embedded in art, craft, and design. She draws from a deep engagement with both Canadian and Indian visual traditions. Her process often involves collaboration with artisan-designers in Kutch, Gujarat, where she explores block printing and embroidery, reclaiming these techniques as vehicles for contemporary expression and cultural resistance.
For Tamhane, whose creative and intellectual pursuits blur the lines between artist, historian, and maker, the Sobey is a wider conversation in the art world about whose hands shape culture and whose stories get told. “Her work is intentionally driven by the search for new languages of image-making and developing new ground for how art, craft, and design in India have been historically articulated and hierarchically divided by colonialism,” notes her artist statement.
The Sobey Art Award, with a total prize pool of $465,000, is not just Canada’s most generous contemporary art prize, but also ranks among the most significant globally. Shortlisted artists will receive $25,000 each, while long-listed artists, including Tamhane, are awarded $10,000. Beyond the cash awards, the recognition often serves as a career-defining moment, bringing Canadian artists to global attention.
The award celebrates practices across a wide spectrum. This year’s long list includes artists working in mask-making, jewelry design, textile portraiture, and experimental material practices like Tamhane’s. The selection is intended to reflect the diversity and depth of Canada’s artistic landscape. “Providing a platform for Canada's most pertinent artistic voices has long been a key pillar of the Award,” the jury noted in a statement, calling the list a testament to the “compelling breadth and calibre of contemporary artmaking in this country.”
Tamhane’s multidisciplinary career spans more than two decades. She holds an MFA in Fibres and Material Practices from Concordia University, an MA in Contemporary Art from the University of Manchester, and a BA in Art History from Carleton University. Her work has been exhibited widely, from Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum and A Space Gallery to Nature Morte in Delhi and V&A Dundee in Scotland.
In addition to her studio practice, Tamhane has also contributed to art discourse through curatorial research and writing. She co-authored SĀR: The Essence of Indian Design with designer Rashmi Varma, published by Phaidon Press, which examines the intersection of everyday objects, design heritage, and cultural identity in India. Her academic and artistic research has been supported by institutions including the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, the Canada Council for the Arts, and Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
The six shortlisted artists for this year’s Sobey Art Award will be announced on Jun.3, with their works slated to be showcased at the National Gallery of Canada in the fall. The grand prize winner will be revealed at a gala event in Ottawa on Nov.8.
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