[Many thanks to Annie Paul (PREE) for bringing this item to our attention.] Our most enthusiastic congratulations to Trinidadian visual artist Christopher Cozier for winning the 2026 Roy Lichtenstein Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Christopher Cozier
- 2026 Roy Lichtenstein Award
- Visual Arts
- Visual Artist
- Born 1959, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago
- Lives in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago
Artist Statement: For me, it takes time to understand or fully grasp, if ever or at all, the choices or the direction my work takes, the process of seeing, feeling and making—of finding my way through things experienced. (December 2025)
Christopher Cozier is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, curator, and cultural critic whose work investigates how historical and contemporary Caribbean experiences with colonialism and globalization shape understandings of the wider world. Cozier’s multifaceted practice—which encompasses drawing, installation, video, performance, and sound—offers spaces for deeply personal and poetic meditations on everyday life, rooted in Caribbean subjectivities. After completing graduate study in the United States in the 1980s, he returned to the Caribbean to further investigate the visual vocabularies and ways of working that are meaningful to him and his community.
Drawing is central to Cozier’s practice, and his densely layered works, which often resemble maps, visual essays, or storyboards, invite viewers to confront uncomfortable histories and contemplate questions of self-determination and agency. His Tropical Nights series, a collection of 268 works on paper created over nearly nine years in multiple locations, examines post-colonial Caribbean histories through a diaristic recounting of his upbringing and global travels. The series is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. [. . .]
Cozier is the recipient of the Pérez Prize from the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL (2023), a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund (2013), and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2004). Cozier was the Ruffin Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at the University of Virginia (2025) and participated in Rising Water Confab at the Rauschenberg Residency, Captiva, FL (2016), a month-long program exploring climate change.
He is co-director of Alice Yard, a contemporary art space and network based in Trinidad and Tobago, founded in 2006. Alice Yard participated in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kerala, India (2025), and documenta fifteen, Kassel, Germany (2022). Cozier holds an M.F.A. from Rutgers University (1988) and a B.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art (1986).
For more information, see https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/ and https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/christopher-cozier/
[Photo above by Marlon Rouse.]
[Many thanks to Annie Paul (PREE) for bringing this item to our attention.] Our most enthusiastic congratulations to Trinidadian visual artist Christopher Cozier for winning the 2026 Roy Lichtenstein Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Christopher Cozier Artist Statement: For me, it takes time to understand or fully grasp, if ever or at all,
