Grande Prairie artist Aileen Bahmanipour is one of 30 Canadian contemporary visual artists who have been longlisted for the 2026 Sobey Art Award, Canada’s most established contemporary visual arts prize.
She said she was “thrilled” to be recognized for her art.
“The core of my practice is drawing, but the practice is not actually the drawing; it’s installation, it’s painting, it’s multidisciplinary, but in a very complex way that it’s often hard for galleries or critics to put it in a specific filing cabinet or label it in a specific way,” said Bahmanipour.
“It was really good affirmation to myself that, aside from all the doubts and anxiety and frustration that I have, [my art] is appreciated, and I think I’m right about the choice of the form and the complexity that I have for my work.”
Bahmanipour is an instructor at Northwestern Polytechnic and moved to Grande Prairie in 2024.
“The Sobey Art Award continues to serve as a crucial platform in the circulation of this country’s most pertinent contemporary artistic voices,” said Jonathan Shaughnessy, NGC director of Curatorial Initiatives.
“Exemplifying a wide array of materials and perspectives, the works of this year’s longlisted artists assert a compelling engagement with the present.”
Bahmanipour studied painting in Iran, where she was born and raised, and then immigrated to Canada landing in Vancouver in 2014. There, she completed her master’s, and, being in a new country and essentially starting over, she felt free to leave painting and explore drawing.
“I valued the intimacy and the consistency and the thought process in the drawing better than other mediums,” she said, “so it became more conceptual in a way, which was quite liberating.”
Bahmanipour said she reminds her students, “that uncertainty or opacity as part of the creative process is always actually a fun part of it.
“Yes, it gives you frustration and anxiety, but accept and embrace it, and it’s actually important because it forces you to make a decision, wrong or right.”
“We are lucky in the field of visual art or art in general, that we have that option to make a decision; I’m not sure how many students have the freedom to make a decision when it comes to mathematics or other fields of science.”
Bahmanipour is scheduled to exhibit her work in a group show at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in 2027.
The 30 artists on the long list come from six regions across the country, and the six shortlisted artists’ names will be announced on May 26.
The winner will be announced on Nov. 14 during a celebration at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
The winner will receive $100,000, and the shortlisted will receive $25,000 and will be featured in an exhibition at the NGC in the Fall. The remaining long-listed artists will receive $10,000.
The artists on the long list for the 2026 Sobey Art Award from each of the six regions are:
Circumpolar
Melaw Nakehk’o
Janet Nungnik
Annie Pillaktuaq
Krystle Silverfox
Melissa Tremblett
Pacific
Charles Campbell
Emily Hermant
Kelly Lycan
Samuel Roy-Bois
Manuel Axel Strain
Prairies
Aileen Bahmanipour
Anna Binta Diallo
Jude Griebel
Zachari Logan
Audie Murray
Ontario
Nadia Belerique
Nour Bishouty
Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka
Lotus L. Kang
Oluseye Ogunlesi
Quebec
Marie-Michelle Deschamps
Chun Hua Catherine Dong
Frantz Patrick Henry
Liza Lacroix
Caroline Monnet
Atlantic
Carrie Allison
Chris Donovan
Chantal Khoury
Shane Perley-Dutcher
Jude Abu Zaineh
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