Today, we spotlight five artists from the Aesthetica Art Prize who use photography to blur the line between reality and fiction. Through carefully staged images, dreamlike narratives and intricately constructed worlds, these practitioners push the medium beyond documentation, transforming it into a site of psychological and emotional exploration. Drawing on personal histories, collective memory and inner states, their works question how identity is formed, remembered and reimagined.
Staging conceptual narratives with a whimsical flair, Michelle Watt often addresses themes of freedom and restriction within the realms of cultural identity. Her work engenders stories about the female minority experience, aiming to give life to unique standards of beauty and culture, and informed by her Chinese American background. She finds joy in assembling tiny, discrete pieces to create vast meaningful worlds, embedding hidden “Easter eggs” as varying social commentary throughout her work.
Disorientation, momentary solitude and lonesome reflection are recurring themes within Seb Agnew’s work. The artist specialises in staged, dreamlike sceneries which explore the human psyche and our modern society. His series Syncope and Cube were shortlisted in 2021. Syncope (the medical term for “fainting” or “passing out”) reflects the feeling of “being disoriented”, whilst Cubes deals with the phenomenon that every now and then, people experience a sense of “disconnect” about life.
Television sets buzz static amongst woodlands. Twigs erupt from ribcages. Mirrors ripple like portals to other worlds. Houses burst intoflames. These are the dark visual fairytales of Ruby Hyde. In each composition, Hyde embraces the juxtapositions of light and shadow – using a sense of contrast and unease to address emotive concepts. The artist views image-making as a process more akin to painting than as a technical endeavour. Hyde often uses Photoshop to elevate pictures beyond the bounds of reality.
South Korean multidisciplinary artist Lee offers excerpts from herdreams, heart and memory. She reinterprets her psychologicallandscape into stage sets, creating the fabric of a universe bornfrom her mind within the confines of her studio. The series Stage of Mind allows Lee to question identity and contemplate existence. The works allow Lee to question identity and contemplate existence. She creates the fabric of a universe born from her mind within the confines of her studio.
May Parlar’s practice is a meditation on the nomadic experience of“being”, in constantly changing, constructed realities. The notions of self, female identity, belonging and alienation are recurrent themes, which employ performative photography and video art. Collective Solitude is a series of self-portraits created with this visual language. Each image translates the contrasting experiences of being and performing within gravity-defying realities and ambiguous timeframes.
Words: Emma Jacob
The Aesthetica Art Prize is open for entries. Submit your work & win £10,000 and exhibition.
Image Credits:
1. Image courtesy May Parlar.
2. Michelle Watt, The Wait.
3. Image courtesy of Seb Agnew.
4. Ruby Hyde, This is No Place (detail), (2022). Print on aluminium panel. 100cm x 100cm.
5. JeeYoung Lee, Loveseek, (2014). From the series Stage of Mind (2007 – ongoing).
6. May Parlar, Collective Solitude, 2018.
