Li Hongbo, best known for his extending paper sculptures, has been announced as the winner of the 2017 Sovereign Asia Art Prize, Art Asia Pacific reports. The Beijing-based artist will receive USD$30,000 (about £23,000) of prize money for his winning entry, Desire (2014), in which tiny silhouettes of people are cut from and rise out of the blade of a cleaver. The Sovereign Asian Art Prize aims to give artists working in the region greater international exposure.
The Sovereign Art Foundation also awarded another prize, the Schoeni Prize, to the artist with the most public votes – Indonesian artist Yogie Achmad Ginanjar. He was presented with a USD$1,000 for his hyperrealistic painting of a punk rock biker entering a mosque.
The finalists for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize included:
Abdul-Rahman Abdulla (Australia)
Bui Cong Khanh (Vietnam)
Imrana Tanveer (Pakistan)
Youki Hirakawa (Japan)
8 May 2017
