Indonesian artist Citra Sasmita was named as the Grand Prize winner of The 2026 Sovereign Asian Art Prize at the Gala Dinner held at AGATE in M+ Museum in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District on 15 May. Filipino artist Joey Cobcobo received the Public Vote Prize and Mongolia artist Nomin Zezegmaa was awarded the Vogue Hong Kong Women’s Art Prize.
Launched in 2003 by the Sovereign Art Foundation (SAF), the Sovereign Asian Art Prize increases the international exposure of contemporary artists in the region while raising vital funds for programmes that support disadvantaged children using the expressive arts.
Held annually, it is now recognised as the most prestigious annual art award in Asia-Pacific. The Prize invites artists, nominated by a board of independent art professionals from across the region, to submit artworks to a judging panel of world-class art experts, which compiles a shortlist of finalists. Click here to view the shortlist!
This year’s Finalists’ Exhibition, which showcased 30 artists from 12 countries, was staged at the H Queen’s from 24 April to 3 May, followed by a second presentation at Phillips Asia Headquarters in the WKCDA Tower from 12 to 15 May. The artworks were judged for a second time at the exhibition and voted on by the public in person and online. The judges scores were then aggregated to find the Grand Prize winner.
The Prize culminated in the Gala Dinner and Live Auction held at AGATE, where some guests arrived aboard the Aqua Luna, Hong Kong’s iconic, red-sailed junk boat. The shortlisted artworks, besides the Grand Prize winner, were auctioned with the proceeds being split evenly between the artists and SAF.
The evening raised a staggering HK$2.5 million in support of SAF’s Make It Better programme, which provides expressive arts therapy to disadvantaged children in Hong Kong. In bringing artists, patrons, and partners together, the Prize continues to champion art as a force for meaningful change.
Grand Prize winner Citra Sasmita, who receives US$30,000, is a multidisciplinary artist from Bali whose work challenges dominant narratives surrounding Balinese art, culture and gender. Poetry of the Fountain is a richly patterned and beaded Kamasan painting that reimagines Earth as a nurturing mother, evoking abundance while highlighting women’s role as custodians of harmony between the natural and human worlds.
Public Vote Prize winner Joey Cobcobo, who gathered the most public votes at the exhibition and online, receives US$1,000. He works mainly with print media, combining the techniques of painting, printmaking and woodcarving to create multi-method assemblages and installation works. IKA-8 UTOS: WAG KANG KUKURAP (THOU SHALL NOT STEAL) is a mixed-media work that confronts the act of looking away from corruption and its direct impact in his daily experience.
The Vogue Hong Kong Women’s Art Prize is awarded to the highest-scoring self-identified female artist among the finalists, excluding the overall Grand Prize winner. This year’s winner Nomin Zezegmaa, who receives US$5,000, is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice investigates and interweaves histories and matter in relation to deep time and other-than-human realms drawing from Mongol cosmogony. A Million Petals of Rebirth is a meditative work that weaves traditional Mongol script, water and ritual materials into a cross-cultural reflection on memory, transformation and cyclical renewal.
Congratulations to the winners and all the finalists. We are hugely grateful to all our venue partners – H Queen’s and Phillips Auction House– for allowing this year’s edition to take place in such amazing spaces, and we must also say a big thank you to all our many sponsors and to everyone who helped raise funds by attending the exhibition and Gala Dinner and bidding so generously at auction. You know who you are!
And finally, thank you again to all our gallery nominators across Asia-Pacific and to our judging panel of Writer, Curator and Museum Director David Elliott, Independent Curator and Art Critic Manray Hsu, Executive Director of Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong Özge Ersoy, and Indian artist Arpita Akhanda, who was the Grand Prize Winner of The 2025 Sovereign Asian Art Prize.
