Steven Shearer Wins C$100,000 Audain Prize

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Steven Shearer has been awarded the 2026 Audain Prize, one of Canada's most significant honors in the visual arts, which includes a cash prize of C$100,000 (approximately $71,000 USD ). The award, now in its 23rd year, was presented on Wednesday, September 23, at a ceremony held in the ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. Shearer received praise for“a remarkable career marked by unrelenting artistic achievement” during the event.

Based in Vancouver, the multidisciplinary artist is recognized for his fantastical and otherworldly portrait paintings, alongside photoconceptualism-influenced images of Generation X-era youth. These works blend art historical references with contemporary iconography.

During his acceptance speech, Shearer acknowledged his mother, who attended the former Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design ), and his uncle, a student at Kwantlen Community College. Shearer himself began his studies at Kwantlen after discovering its phone number in the yellow pages. He also commended the emerging artists who work as his assistants.

“I've always thought that painting for me was the culmination of everything I do,” Shearer stated.“All the other works are not sidetracks, but they are a way of building a world for where maybe the subject matter of the paintings come from, and a source of inspiration. Painting, for me, is like starting over again each time. There is always a level of challenge that you can bring to it that keeps it interesting.”

When asked by The Art Newspaper about his plans for the prize money, Shearer indicated he would reinvest it in his expanding studio. There, he is currently developing a series of“mystery portraits” based on his imagination and new body-scanning technology.

Emmy Lee Wall, a member of the 2026 Audain Prize selection committee and the executive director and chief curator of Vancouver's Capture Photography Festival, commented on Shearer's work.“Steven Shearer is internationally renowned for the distinct way in which he weaves together canonical art historical references such as Fauvist or German Romantic paintings with contemporary youth subcultures including heavy metal, punk and 1970s glam rock,” Wall said.“His work collapses the traditional hierarchies between 'high art' and the vulnerable and aggressive energy of teen rebellion.”

Shearer's art has received international acclaim, with exhibitions at institutions like the Tate Modern in London (in 2005 ) and the Venice Biennale, where he represented Canada in 2011. He is represented by David Zwirner, which hosted solo shows for him in New York in 2024 and London earlier this year, and Galerie Eva Presenhuber. The latter has held eight solo exhibitions of his work across its Zürich, Seoul, and New York locations over the past 21 years. A solo exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado is planned for next year.

However, Shearer's work has not always been celebrated in his hometown. In 2021, seven site-specific billboard works commissioned for the Capture Photography Festival stirred controversy. These images, depicting people sleeping in public and evoking both Pop art and Renaissance religious paintings, generated numerous outraged emails from local residents. Some found the exploration of the boundary between sleep and death unsettling. The works were installed along the city's Arbutus Greenway, a public art venue also used by pedestrians and cyclists, but were removed by their sponsor, Pattison Outdoor Advertising, the day before the festival's official opening. They were subsequently replaced with stock photography.

Established in 2004 by collector and philanthropist Michael Audain, the Audain Prize is presented annually by the Whistler, British Columbia-based Audain Art Museum. Its stated goal is to“elevate artists from British Columbia.” Previous recipients include prominent contemporary artists from Western Canada, such as Brian Jungen, Rebecca Belmore, Dana Claxton, Ian Wallace, and James Hart.

We previously reported:

The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation has announced eight recipients of its 2026 Rabkin Prize, with each art writer receiving $50,000.

Source: The Art Newspaper

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