Glitched landscapes. Paper fish. Echoes of René Magritte. These longlisted artists from the 2025 Aesthetica Art Prize create surreal works that make audiences double take. Figures are distorted in the landscape, blending in with flora and foliage, whilst elsewhere clouds look like they’ve blurred and stretched. The result is a body of art that is at once playful and unsettling, inviting viewers to question not only what they are seeing, but how systems of representation, authorship and reality are constructed.
Karl Roberts conjures surreal self-portraits that bring his vivid imagination to life. Drawing on inspirations from literature, music and cinema, his projects evolve over weeks into dreamlike tableaux where objects float and reality bends. His process is entirely handcrafted – relying on physical props and real locations to build his narratives. The artist has a unique ability to blending fantasy with deeply personal storytelling.
Fascinated by the elusive nature of reality, Ellen Jantzen creates photographic works that question perception, truth and representation. Influenced by scientific theories of multiverses and space-time, she embraces photography’s ability to visualise the unseen and intangible. Her practice acknowledges the medium’s historical claim to truth while also exposing its manipulative potential.
Berlin-based Kseniia Antipina creates surreal photographic narratives centred on figures searching for belonging. Her carefully composed scenes capture intangible emotions, often obscuring faces to emphasise body language and symbolic objects. Antipina’s images navigate the complexities of identity and place, inviting viewers to engage with unspoken feelings and nuanced inner worlds.
Olana Light is a multidisciplinary artist with an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths. She works primarily with natural materials, incorporating the earth’s textures, forms and cycles into her practice. Her body of work spans sculpture, performance and film. Light creates inclusive, accessible experiences that ask audiences to consider their shared relationship with the organic world, and their place within it.
Katerina Belkina, a Hasselblad Master from Russia, crafts mystical self-portraits that merge painting, photography and digital collage. Her work delves into human psychology and emotion through carefully staged theatrical scenes. Now based in Germany, Belkina blends classical aesthetics with modern techniques to create striking, feminist narratives that captivate and challenge.
Words: Emma Jacob
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Image Credits:
1. © Karl Roberts.
2. Looker, Karl Roberts.
3. Sandia Equipoise, Ellen Jantzen.
4. A Fishy Encounter, Kseniia Antipina.
5. Searching for a Place to Belong D, Olana Light.
6. Red in the Hotel, Katerina Belkina.
