Vancouver artist Arabella Campbell has won the $25,000 RBC Canadian painting competition for her work called Physical Facts Series #6.

A painter who works out of a studio building in Vancouver's False Creek, Campbell graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute and Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design in 2002.

Arabella Campbell's Physical Facts Series #6 won the RBC Painting Competition.
(RBC Painting Competition)

The prize provides her with time to work, she told CBC News on Wednesday.

"It means I can go into the studio and focus on my work and put that money back into the process," she said.

She is currently working on a series of new paintings that explore light and movement of light.

Two other young Canadian artists, Chris Millar of Calgary and Melanie Authier of Toronto, won $15,000 each for their entries in the annual competition.

Winners of the competition, the largest award for Canada's emerging artists, were announced Tuesday evening in Toronto.

Millar won for his work entitled, FACEBITOR - The Untimely Transmogrification of the Problem and Authier for her Apocalyptic Picnic.

Campbell is represented by the Catriona Jeffries Gallery in Vancouver and recently had a solo show there. She has also shown her work in Toronto and London.

San Francisco curator Jenn Hoffman has selected one of her paintings for an upcoming exhibit in Spain.

"I'm interested in looking at things and observing things and allowing people to see things in a different manner," Campbell said.

Her winning painting "acknowledges the support structure of the actual canvas," she said. Other works have explored the colours of gallery walls and the tools and methods of the painter.

The judges praised Campbell's "intelligent results [that] both critique and glorify the medium of painting."

"Pleasing in its symmetry and window-like effect alone, this painting also has a witty, [Möbius strip]-like conceptual effect, turning painting backwards and inside out," the judges said.

The national winner and honourable mentions were selected from 15 semi-finalists from across the country.

Their works will tour the country, starting at Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto.

The exhibit will also be shown: 

• Oct. 3-12: Galerie d'art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen, Université de Moncton in New Brunswick.
• Oct. 17-24: MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ont.
• Oct. 31-Nov. 11: Winnipeg Art Gallery in Winnipeg.
• Nov. 24-Dec.1: Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design in Vancouver.