$100,000 to be awarded to 12 local artists

A shortlist of twelve Edmonton artists will be honoured for their exceptional work in music, visual art, film and literature at the Edmonton Arts Prizes celebration on May 7, 2025: 

City of Edmonton Music Prize:
Celeigh Cardinal, King Thief, margø

City of Edmonton Film Prize:
Darrin Hagen, Don Depoe, Scott Portingale

The Eldon + Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Arts Prize:
Cheyenne LeGrande ᑭᒥᐊᐧᐣ, Heather Shillinglaw, Raneece Buddan

Robert Kroetsch – City of Edmonton Book Prize:
Benjamin Hertwig, Crystal Gail Fraser, Marilyn Dumont 

In total $100,000 will be awarded to the artists at the awards presentation in May. Each of the 12 shortlisted artists will receive a prize, with $15,000 going to the primary recipient in each category, and two secondary prizes of $5000 being awarded to the runners up. The recipients will be recognized at the awards ceremony, during which the overall winner of each prize will be announced. All are welcome to attend the awards ceremony on May 7 at 6:30 pm at Roxy Theatre. To RSVP, click here.

“The Arts Prizes showcase some of the city’s best artistic talent, increasing hometown recognition and acclaim for these nationally renowned artists who are putting Edmonton’s art scene on the map,” said Renée Williams, Executive Director of the Edmonton Arts Council. ​“Through the support of the City of Edmonton, the Edmonton Arts Council can continue to provide these types of opportunities to artists in our city.”

The Edmonton Arts Prizes celebrate artists from a range of art forms and practices, recognizing their work, and investing in their continued experimentation and creation. The prize program is coordinated by the Edmonton Arts Council, in partnership with the City of Edmonton and our community partners: Alberta Media Production Industries Association, Alberta Music, Audreys Books, CARFAC Alberta, Edmonton Community Foundation and Writers’ Guild of Alberta. 

Shortlisted Artists for the 2025 Edmonton Arts Prizes

Shortlisted musicians for the City of Edmonton Music Prize

(in partnership with Alberta Music)

CELEIGH CARDINAL for Boundless Possibilities

• Celeigh Cardinal’s powerful voice and storytelling have earned her widespread acclaim. Her third studio album, Boundless Possibilities, marks a turning point in her career — an odyssey through grief, the triumphant peaks of independence, and the sacred valleys of spirituality.
• Anchored by its luminous standout track, ​“Light of the Moon”, which earned her the 2024 Songwriter of the Year award at the Western Canadian Music Awards, the album Boundless Possibilities is a radiant testament to her lyrical mastery.
• Instagram: @celeighcardinal
  

KING THIEF for King Thief (Self Titled)

• A fast and fiery punk rock juggernaut, King Thief was born as a musical call to arms for Edmonton’s underground scene in 2019. The gravelly delivery of Eric Neillson’s lyrics sit atop Darren Chewka’s melodic drumming and Nick Kouremenos’ bass mastery. Shawn Moncrieff and Ryan Podlubny haunt listeners with adventurously rhythmic chording and inter-weaving lead-line crescendos.
• Edmonton is well known for its bizarre and unique take on aggressive, melodic music – and King Thief’s self titled debut album hits hard with a straightforward, undeniable energy coupled with melodic ideas, all joining as songs that are interesting while familiar.
• Instagram: @kingthief.music
  

MARGØ for who are you when you’re alone?

• Alternative pop musician, songwriter, composer, and producer margø creates loud music with empowering messages; encouraging her listeners to embrace their uniqueness and practice self-love.
• Margø’s debut album who are you when you’re alone? represents the quiet moments alone in our rooms in the middle of the night when we’re left to face our true selves — and how we learn to live with (and love) every aspect of ourselves, including our flaws.
• Instagram: @ margo4prez

Shortlisted films for the City of Edmonton Film Prize

(in partnership with Alberta Media Production Industries Association)

DARRIN HAGEN for Pride vs. Prejudice

• Darrin Hagen is a playwright, author, composer, Queer historian, and Artistic Director of Guys In Disguise. He has created over 40 plays, and dozens of published essays and articles dealing with Queer history. 
• Hagan directed the documentary, Pride vs. Prejudice: The Delwin Vriend Story. Delwin Vriend never wanted to be a human rights activist, but in challenging his firing for being gay, he set in motion a chain of events that impacted the lives of LGBTQ+ people — not just in Alberta, not just in Canada, but around the globe.
  
  

DON DEPOE (Dept. 9 Studios) for Dark Match

• Don Depoe is President and Producer at Dept. 9 Studios, a locally owned and operated boutique film production facility based in Edmonton. Depoe is a producer on the horror feature film Dark Match.
• In Dark Match, a small-time wrestling company accepts a well-paying gig in a backwoods town only to learn, too late, that the community is run by a mysterious cult leader with devious plans for their match.
• Instagram: @dept.9studios
  
  

SCOTT PORTINGALE for Emergence

• Award-winning animation director and cinematographer, Scott Portingale is best known for experimental natural history time-lapse cinematography, stop-motion animation and cosmic practical effects work. 
• Theology and theory coalesce in his nominated short stop-motion animated film, Emergence, inspired by the emergence of consciousness from the material world, our encounter with the logos, and our pursuit of understanding.
• Instagram: @scottportingale

Shortlisted artists for the Eldon + Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Arts Prize

(in partnership with the Eldon and Anne Foote Fund at the Edmonton Community Foundation & CARFAC Alberta)

CHEYENNE RAIN LEGRANDE ᑭᒥᐘᐣ for mi^kisak ᒦᑭᐢ
(Nominated by Saz Massey, Downtown Spark) 

• Cheyenne Rain LeGrande ᑭᒥᐊᐧᐣ is a Nehiyaw Isko artist, from Bigstone Cree Nation. Her work often explores history, knowledge and traditional practices. Bringing their ancestors with her, they move through installation, public art, photography, fashion, video, sound, and performance art.
• LeGrande’s large 10-foot sculpture mîkisak ᒦᑭᐢ is inspired by a beaded fringe earring and in nehiyawewin, it’s title translates to beads. It includes 50 pink, purple and baby blue hand blown glass beads. With this piece LeGrande reimagines beads by enlarging them in scale. mîkisak ᒦᑭᐢ celebrates the beauty and traditional uses of beads but pushes into another realm.
• Instagram: @cheyennerainlegrande
  
  

HEATHER SHILLINGLAW for MNIDOONS GIIZIS OONHG — LITTLE SPIRIT MOON
(Nominated by Tyler Sherard, McMullan Gallery) 

• Heather Shillinglaw is a mixed-media artist and member of Cold Lake First Nations. Through Heather’s research informed art practice, she works with Elders to encourage resiliency and knowledge of the land. Over her career, Shillinglaw has shared land-based teachings in art workshops to thousands of students of all ages.
• Shillinglaw’s nominated artwork MNIDOONS GIIZIS OONHG — LITTLE SPIRIT MOON (NOVEMBER) is an evocative piece that bridges Indigenous storytelling, ecological wisdom, and celestial wonder. It is one of the panels in the exhibition Nokomis gizis (“Grandmother Moon”), a series of 13 quilted, beaded, and painted story images inspired by the Turtle Moon calendar.
  
  

RANEECE BUDDAN for Adorned in our Threads
(Nominated by Art Gallery of St. Albert) 

• Raneece Buddan’s artistic practice is an ongoing journey of self-discovery, constantly learning more about her cultural identity as a Jamaican woman of Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean ancestry. As a multidisciplinary artist, Raneece finds joy in a well-rounded practice oil painting, woodworking, clay sculpting, ceramics, resin casting, printmaking and weaving. 
• “Adorned in our Threads serves as an archive of ancestral knowledge and all which runs through my veins that I am now accessing. Using Dutch elm wood with DED, this piece highlights Dutch wax textiles, which through colonization have become a staple in West African attire contributing to the loss of traditional textile practices. Embedded through carving and application are a mix of traditional Nigerian, Ghanaian and Indian textiles.”
• Instagram: @raneecebuddan

Shortlisted authors for the Robert Kroetsch – City of Edmonton Book Prize

(in partnership with Audreys Books & Writers’ Guild of Alberta)

BENJAMIN HERTWIG for Juiceboxers

• Award winning, multi-disciplinary artist Benjamin Hertwig’s writing is informed by his own dis/​ability, specifically living with multiple sclerosis and PTSD. His fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in places like the New York Times, the Globe & Mail, and the Walrus, among others.
• “Juiceboxers is a novel about a group of friends from Edmonton and took me almost ten years to write. Central themes are masculinity, conformity, violence, white supremacy and militarism. It’s also a love letter to Edmonton, the city of my birth and the place I have returned after almost a decade away. How do we cultivate and create peace – personal, societal, relational – in the aftermath of war and violence? That’s what the novel is about.”
  

CRYSTAL GAIL FRASER for By Strength, We Are Still Here: Indigenous Peoples and Indian Residential Schooling in Inuvik, Northwest Territories

• Dr. Crystal Gail Fraser (she/​her) is Gwichyà Gwich’in from Inuvik and Dachan Choo Gę̀hnjik, Northwest Territories. Dr. Fraser’s work centers on community-engaged research that amplifies the perspectives of Indigenous Survivors, Elders, and Knowledge Keepers — particularly those who experienced Indian Residential Schooling in northern Canada.
• By Strength, We Are Still Here illuminates student experiences in northern residential schools, drawing on Dinjii Zhuh (Gwich’in) concepts of individual and collective strength. Fraser reveals how Indigenous northerners resisted assimilation policies after 1945, when Canada sought to destroy Indigenous ways of life.
  

MARILYN DUMONT for South Side of a Kinless River

• Marilyn Dumont has written five collections of poetry reclaiming her sense of place and belonging in Alberta despite her Métis ancestors being some of the first to supply the Fur Trade forts in 1795. Her collections range from recollections of a young Métis women’s awareness of race, gender, class differences and the shame and pride in Métis history and culture in Alberta to an imaginative history of a city shaped by the fur trade.
• South Side of a Kinless River wrestles with concepts of Métis identity in a nation and territory that would rather erase it. Métis identity, land loss, sexual relationships between Indigenous women and European men, and midwifery by Indigenous women of the nascent settler communities figure into these poems.