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RUTH BONNEVILLE \/ FREE PRESS Files<\/p>\n
Winnipeg-raised, British-based artist Joel Nichol won the National Portrait Gallery\u2019s Young Artist Award on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s short list was selected from more than 1,474 entries from artists across 63 countries. Nichols was chosen for his 2025 oil-on-canvas portrait, In Our Borderlands, which is also among 51 portraits that have been chosen for an associated exhibition opening Friday.<\/p>\n
While Los Angeles-born, France-based painter Marc Dalessio took home the top prize of 35,000 pounds (about C$65,500) at the ceremony in London on Tuesday, Nichols, 26, was feted with the Young Artist Award, which comes with a prize of 9,000 pounds (about C$17,000) and is given to an artist between the ages of 18 and 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was surreal (to be nominated),\u201d he says over the phone from London. \u201cAnd the work that I\u2019m exhibiting with is so incredible, never mind to be put forward for one of the awards, and then eventually winning the Young Artist Award. It\u2019s still sinking in as I speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the only pinch-me moment Nichols has had in his young career. After graduating from the University of Manitoba\u2019s School of Art in 2023, Nichols returned to his native U.K. to complete a master\u2019s degree at the University of Oxford\u2019s Ruskin School of Art as a Rhodes scholar.<\/p>\n
Nichols has the distinction of being the 100th U of M student to earn the much-coveted scholarship, which provides funding for two years of full-time post-graduate studies at Oxford, as well as the first successful finalist from the School of Art.<\/p>\n
When he began his studies at U of M, he was actually a faculty of science student with designs on becoming a doctor.<\/p>\n
The seeds for In Our Borderlands were planted in an Oxford dorm room, where Nichols and his friends would get together and cook or watch movies as a way to foster community. Nichols was struck by the way the light came across his friend Jo\u2019s face, and wanted to capture that moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to deal with the idea of vulnerability as a relational space, so something that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean to be precarious or at risk, but something that\u2019s just inherently human, and a foundation for human connection,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Nichols has been experimenting with giving up some control in his portraiture practice, allowing the subject to help pick the reference photograph or the light that\u2019s used.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day I\u2019m still painting it, but it\u2019s just to kind of question those dynamics of the subject, the viewer and the artist, and try to question, if not complicate, that hierarchy in the practice,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Joel Nichols\u2019 In Our Borderlands (oil on canvas) was inspired by his time in an Oxford dorm room where Nichols and his colleagues would cook and watch movies together.<\/p>\n From the winners\u2019 announcement: \u201cThe judges admired the painting\u2019s distinctly mysterious atmosphere and the technically accomplished use of light, which shapes both the psychological depth of the sitter and the spatial complexity of the composition.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a big week for Nichols, who also just handed in his dissertation for the art history degree he\u2019s completing at Oxford.<\/p>\n \n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t \u201cI\u2019m massively sleep deprived at the moment,\u201d he says. But he\u2019s already thinking about what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very lucky that I\u2019ve been offered a little bit of funding to cover my living costs, so I\u2019ll most likely be London-based, making a body of work that I\u2019ll be executing over the next year.\u201d<\/p>\n In the meantime, to have one of his own works up in one of Britain\u2019s most significant galleries \u201cis, for lack of adjectives, crazy,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a space that I\u2019ve been in quite a lot, just to get inspiration and see the historic works that are there, so to have my work up alongside them is just surreal. I don\u2019t quite have the words for it.\u201d<\/p>\n winnipegfreepress.com\/jenzoratti<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Jen Zoratti Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT<\/a>. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2013 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
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