3 Concordia fine arts alumni are among the 2025 MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award winners
Concordia alumni Michelle Lacombe, BA 06, Santiago Tamayo Soler, BFA 19, and Anne-Marie Proulx, MA 13, are among the five artists selected for the prestigious 2025 MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award.
“This award was a wonderful surprise and a validating experience professionally,” says Tamayo Soler.
The MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award combines exhibition, a $10,000 grant, publication and art acquisition, in order to provide significant visibility to established artists and support their careers.
The winning artists are featured in an exhibition that launched on February 12, where the pieces reflect on themes of territory, culture, migration and identity. On display at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ), the exhibition runs until April 21 and showcases recent pieces by these dynamic artists, whose practices span installation, video, photography and body art. Eruoma Awashish and Rémi Belliveau complete the group of awardees.
The 2025 MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award presents a group exhibition showcasing the five prize-winners, including three Concordia alumni. | Photo courtesy of MNBAQ
‘Concordia was my first point of contact’
Tamayo Soler, a multidisciplinary artist from Bogotá, explores Latin American identity and diaspora through digital art, performance and film. In Postales, featured in this exhibition, he combines Canadian and Colombian landscapes in hybrid postcards, reflecting on his migration journey, and he invites the Colombian diaspora to share their memories of his first years in Canada.
“During my time at Concordia, I was lucky to have teachers who allowed me to experiment and shape the early stages of the language that I currently work with. Notably, Nelson Henricks, Christine Swintak, Mary Sui Yee Wong and François Morelli,” highlights Tamayo Soler.
“As an international student, Concordia was my first point of contact with the local community. Most of my past classmates and some of my teachers are now my friends and colleagues.”
Lacombe’s work meanwhile explores body art through transformative performances and installations. With Bartolo di Fredi’s Bloody Gash: la césarienne et la chute de l’homme, Lacombe blends art history, drawing from a 14th-century Italian fresco, and references the brutal early history of the caesarean operation.
"While I am wary of the culture of competition that prizes cultivate within our sector, I am also deeply grateful for the recognition attributed to me by the jury and the support provided by the MNBAQ and their team,” Lacombe says.
“It is all the more meaningful for me because my practice, rooted in performance and action, has existed largely outside of the exhibition format and, as such, rarely benefits from this scale of institutional visibility. I feel honoured that my work was highlighted and included among such a talented and relevant list of peer artists."
Proulx, who creates immersive photographic installations that blend her personal readings and travels, is presenting her latest work, Être encore (2024-2025), inspired by Anne Hébert’s Le Premier Jardin. Her piece intertwines images and texts reflecting a transatlantic journey and the quest for identity.
During the exhibition, a second jury will select one winner for additional recognition, including a monograph and acquisition of their work for the museum's collection.
Find out more about Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts.
