Aesthetica Art Prize set to return to York Art Gallery

The Aesthetica Art Prize is returning to York Art Gallery for its 20th year from July 17 to November 15.

Short-listed artists will have their work on show upstairs at the art gallery alongside the other exhibitions.

The year’s themes include the environment and people’s relationship to it, as well as global identities and culture.

Cherie Federico, director of Aesthetica and curator of the art prize, said the award celebrates contemporary artists that “shape and challenge the cultural conditions of the present-day”.

Among those shortlisted is Kazuaki Koseki who has photographed Himebotaru fireflies, a species unique to Japan.

Hotarubi – Summer Fairies by Kazuaki Koseki which will be on display during the Aesthetic Art Prize exhibition at York Art Gallery (Image: Supplied)

Felipe Castelblanco will showcase Tunda: A Quantic Plant and the Devil’s Breath, exploring the development of human relationships with the natural world and its longstanding entanglement with colonialism.

Other works from Filip Haglund, Hope Strickland, Jarrett Murphy and Alexis Pichot also navigate themes of the natural world using photography and film.

Cherie said the Aesthetica Art Prize has “evolved into a space where artistic practice is not only exhibited but activated, supporting careers, fostering global dialogue, and championing work that responds directly to the urgencies of now”.

Arrival by Chrissy Lush which will be on show at York Art Gallery during the Aesthetica Art Prize exhibit (Image: Supplied)

“This is art with purpose, work that operates as a force of disruption and recalibration, unsettling fixed ways of seeing and opening up new ways of understanding a world in flux.

“The selected artists engage directly with the defining pressures of contemporary life, from accelerating technologies that reshape perception and truth, to the legacies of colonial histories and their ongoing impact on identity and belonging, and ecological systems under strain.

Digigrams by Tommy Goguely which will be on show as part of the Aesthetica Art Prize at York Art Gallery (Image: Supplied)

“Across these works, memory is not fixed but porous and unstable, continuously rewritten through image, material and experience.

“Photography, film and installation move beyond documentation into active states of becoming, where meaning is constructed, unsettled and reformed.

“Rather than resolving uncertainty, the prize holds space for it – creating a platform where contemporary art reflects, resists and redefines the present.”

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Livia Turnbull, curator of contemporary art at York Art Gallery, said it is “wonderful to be hosting Aesthetica as it celebrates its 20th year”.

“The range of mediums are always an exciting part of the exhibition design, blending the physical and digital into York Art Gallery and recognising how they sit alongside the other contemporary works in our own collection.

“The prize helps to show the range of artistic diversity within the exhibitions programme and showcases York as a champion of creative arts and media.”

The Aesthetica Art Prize opens at York Art Gallery on July 17 and will run until November 15. Tickets are included with general admission to the gallery.