Winnipeg visual artist Divya Mehra has won the 2022 Sobey Prize, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) announced at a gala held Wednesday in Ottawa.
She won the $100,000 prize donated by the Sobey Foundation for the Arts, while the other four finalists — Krystle Silverfox, Azza El Siddique, Stanley February and Tyshan Wright — received prizes of $25,000 each. Aged 41, Divya Mehra is interested in themes of otherness, race, diversity and marginality.
A graduate of the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg) and Columbia University (New York), she creates works that evoke displacement, loss, neutrality and oppression. She declines them in mediums such as photography, video, cinema, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, performance and installation.
PHOTO RICHARD ZIMMERMAN, SUPPLIED BY THE NGC
Remember, say NO to discomfort, guilt, anguish or psychological distress [Souvenez-vous, dites NON à l’inconfort, la culpabilité, l’angoisse ou la détresse psychologique]from the Serie the end of you2021, Divya Mehra, printed billboard commissioned for the Add Space/Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2021, 3.17m x 6.9m.
“The jury found Divya Mehra’s work to be both timely and sophisticated in its approach to systems of cultural representation, production and authority. Regardless of any specific medium, the impact of Mehra’s practice goes beyond established concepts of art,” said Jonathan Shaughnessy, Director of Curatorial Initiatives at the NGC and Chair of the Sobey Art Prize Jury. 2022.
Divya Mehra has exhibited in Canada, the United States and Austria since the beginning of her career.