Canada’s contemporary art community is gathered this evening at the Royal Ontario Museum to celebrate the passion and talent of Canada’s young contemporary artists and to honour Tim Lee, winner of the 2008 Sobey Art Award.

Commenting on Lee’s selection, the Curatorial Panel for the 2008 Sobey Art Award stated, “Lee’s work brings together formalism and conceptualism; its visual impact always exceeding the multiple levels that go into it. His work is a meditation on the unreliability of vision and the shifting nature of identity. He is as much rooted in his community as he is involved in the global interrogation of forms and identity.”

Tim Lee lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia. Working with photography, video, text and sculpture, Lee's work both replicates and re-imagines seminal moments in art history and popular culture. Lee’s work will be featured at the upcoming Biennale of Sydney, Australia; in a fall 2008 solo exhibition at the Hayward gallery in London UK; and a solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, Texas. Lee was selected from among five shortlisted artists from across Canada.

“The 2008 Sobey Art Award is a true showcase of Canada's best young artists,” said Donald R. Sobey, Chair, Sobey Art Foundation. “Congratulations to the winner, Tim Lee, and all of the shortlisted artists for creating such impactful and important works.”

“Culture is a mirror of who we are as a society and Scotiabank’s support of Canada’s cultural communities is a reflection of who we are as a corporation,” said Rick Waugh, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Scotiabank. “Scotiabank is proud to be thepresenting sponsor of the Sobey Art Award and pleased to do our part to support Canada’s cultural communities.”

The exhibition featuring the five finalists for the Sobey Art Award is on display until October 13, 2008 at the Royal Ontario Museum and hosted by the ROM’s Institute for Contemporary Culture.