Steven Shearer, the Vancouver artist whose work spans painted portraits, photo collage and online images of people sleeping, has won one of Canada’s top art prizes.
Shearer made a rare public appearance Wednesday to accept the $100,000 Audain Prize for the Visual Arts, which goes to a British Columbia-based artist.
Shearer is a darling of the art world, perhaps in part because of the mythos that surrounds him: he’s often described as being somewhat reclusive and avoiding having photos of himself posted on the internet.
He works in multiple media, including paintings that meld modern subjects — men with long hair or painted nails, wearing accoutrements of various subcultures — with a more traditional style.
Shearer has also put on exhibitions of found imagery — specifically, photos of people sleeping that he’s found online, which he manipulates and enlarges to a massive scale, sometimes as tall as a gallery wall.
The Audain Prize winner is chosen by an independent committee and presented by the Audain Art Museum.
It was founded in 2004, and in 2019 the purse increased from $30,000 to $100,000.
Last year’s winner was Brian Jungen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2026.
