Every year, the Aesthetica Art Prize provides a platform for innovative and pioneering creatives.
Here, we highlight five photographers from the prize who are pushing the boundaries of the
medium. Their work thoughtfully explores the nature of self-expression and identity, and the
connection between artist and viewer. These are the artists defining the future of photography.
Kumi Oguro
HESTER
In the series Hester, Kumi Oguro seeks to create a world just next to our daily reality. The faces
of the models are often not visible, making it unclear whether what we are seeing is a frozen
moment in time or subjects waiting to be awakened from a deep sleep. The women are balancing
on a thin line between the childlike and the sensual, the playful and the tragic.
Alice Duncan
Black Hole
Black Hole was created at Lake Mungo, Australia, on the traditional lands of the Barkandji/Paakantyi, Mutthi Mutthi and Ngiyampaa people. This site represents an important, often overlooked, natural Australian landmark. Since the discoveries of ancient human remains in the 1960s, Lake Mungo has been the location of an ongoing, often tense dialogue between Aboriginal people and descendants of settlers.
Alexej Sachov
Chronicles of an Emerging Diversity
Alexej Sachov is a Ukrainian-German artist and diver whose work advocates for environmental protection. He creatively merges photography and painting to demonstrate the underwater world’s
boundless beauty and undeniable fragility. Born from the aftermath of our thoughtless waste,
Chronicles of an Emerging Diversity captures new, man-made underwater species.
Heather Agyepong
D is for…
D is For… is inspired by psychiatrist Carl Jung’s concept of “the Shadow.” Jung defined this as the aspects of one’s personality deemed inappropriate, which may have been repressed during childhood and adolescence, by family, education, social norms and other external factors. Both deeply personal and universal, the work presents an innovative exploration of self-discovery and imperfection.
Geoff Titley
Decomposition
Decomposition is an undeniable stage within every organic cycle. It is also the title for Titley’s photographic series, which explores our evolving view of the world as we endeavour to convert
the natural into the technological and the physical into the virtual. As we move closer to our tools,
our worldview continues to shift further and further towards abstraction.
