Brian Jungen Wins 2025 Audain Prize for the Visual Arts
Artist Brian Jungen takes the stage at the 2025 Audain Prize ceremony in Vancouver. (Photo by Downtime Photo / courtesy Audain Prize).
Posted on
The prestigious recognition is considered one of the highest arts honours in Canada.
Celebrated artist and Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECU) alum Brian Jungen (alum 1992) is the recipient of the 2025 Audain Prize for the Visual Arts.
Best known for his innovative transformation of consumer goods into sculpture and installation, Brian’s lauded multidisciplinary practice explores the complexities of appropriation, commodification and cultural identity in the context of globalized mass production.
“I am grateful for all the exposure that I’ve had over the years, and to the people who have helped me along the way,” Brian says in a statement. “Being honoured as the recipient of this year’s Audain Prize extends beyond acknowledging my accomplishments as an artist. The Audain Prize serves as another bridge between my sculptures and members of the public, sharing my work with new audiences and communities, across generations and throughout the globe.”
Top: Brian Jungen, Variant 1, 2002. Nike athletic leather footwear. (Audain Art Museum Collection. Gift of Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa. Photo courtesy Catriona Jeffries) | Bottom: Brian Jungen, Shapeshifter, 2000. Plastic chairs. (Collection of the National Gallery of Canada. Courtesy of the artist. Photo courtesy Catriona Jeffries)
Established in 2004 to elevate Canadian art globally, the Audain Prize is one of the country’s most prestigious arts honours. At $100,000, it is also one of the richest in Canada.
Brian was presented with the award at a Sept. 26 ceremony in Vancouver which brought together prominent arts figures from across the country to “celebrate Jungen’s far-reaching achievements and contributions to Canada’s cultural landscape,” according to the Audain Prize. Attendees included artist and educator Xwalacktun (alum 1982) who provided a Coast Salish welcome.
“It is an honor to recognize Brian Jungen with the 2025 Audain Prize,” says Audain Foundation chair Michael Audain in a statement. “The impact of his art is undeniable. Since the late 90s, Jungen has forged a name for himself internationally through his commanding sculptural practice. It is critical that we not only acknowledge the calibre of such accomplished artists but also continue to raise their profile here in British Columbia, in Canada and around the world.”
Top: Brian Jungen, The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night, 2024. 250-year-old French colonial oak table from Baton Rouge, wood arrows, carbon steel points, feather, artificial sinew. Installation view, Prospect.6: The Future Is Present, The Harbinger Is Home, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, USA, 2024. Commissioned by Prospect.6. (Photo by Alex Marks. Courtesy of Catriona Jeffries) | Bottom: Brian Jungen, Anonymous Drawings (Girl with Totems), 1997. Latex paint on wall. (Courtesy Catriona Jeffries)
The award is the latest for Brian who in 2002 won the inaugural Sobey Art Award and in 2010 received the Gershon Iskowitz Prize.
During the ceremony, five $7,500 Audain Travel Awards were also bestowed to student artists, including ECU Master of Fine Arts student Naimah-Bint Amin. Established in 2019, the annual Travel Awards are administered in partnership with major universities across BC in support of career advancement through international art experiences.
Born north of Fort St. John, BC, to Dane-Zaa and Swiss parents, Brian notes he had long been curious about representations of Indigenous identity. In a video produced by the Audain Prize, he points to his early drawings as an exercise in understanding the ways such identities function in the public sphere.
In the 1990s and 2000s, his transformation of Nike Air Jordan sneakers into a series of masks recalling Indigenous carvings brought him international acclaim, setting the stage for a career that includes acquisitions by major public collections, appearances in leading international galleries and his establishment as a preeminent figure in contemporary art.