Today, we’re spotlighting five longlisted photographers from the Aesthetica Art Prize who are redefining how we see the landscape. These lens-based artists move beyond the obvious, transforming the natural world into something immersive and unexpected. Some draw our attentions towards the climate crisis, urging audiences to refocus their attention on protecting the environment while we still can. Others look back to an earlier time, when humanity lived in harmony with the natural world. Each image is an opportunity to look at our surroundings anew, and consider an alternative way of living.
The South West Coast Path and the South Dorset Ridgeway are ancient trails that stretch from Dorset in the east to Cornwall in the far southwest of England. For millennia these natural elevated byways have been critically important to local people. With expansive views across the Jurassic landscape to the sea beyond, these highpoints still evoke the ancient communities who used them as vantage points. Even in these protected landscapes human impact can be seen everywhere. Ebb and Flow acts as a stark reminder of the climate emergency. The images foreshadow an ancient natural world teetering on the edge.
Sean Du is a landscape photographer whose work aims to reconnect us with nature. A graduate of BFA Photography from Art Center College of Design, Du combines his artistic training with a passion for the wilderness to create compelling imagery. His ongoing series, Above the Treeline, is a quest to explore off the beaten path, capturing new and inspiring views in North America’s mountain landscapes. In this project, he documents alpine journeys through hiking and climbing, reflecting on geological time, human scale and a renewed sense of wonder and connection to the land and its sustaining natural systems.
Vietnam-born, Madrid-based artist Viet Ha Tran works across painting and fine art photography. Her practice explores nature through abstraction, centring on vast landscapes and delicate ecosystems to compare inner landscapes with the external world. Tran’s work is recognised for atmospheric depth and philosophical sensitivity. The Soul of Landscape, made in Tràng An, Vietnam, uses Taoist philosophy to transform UNESCO locations into dreamlike, painterly visions. She has collaborated with Amazon, Louis Vuitton and Samsung, and was named a “Top 25 Artist to Collect” in 2025 by Artsper.
Magic Forest tells the story of the Laurisila, an ancient subtropical rainforest on the Canary Islands. Anna Korbut’s series shows the beauty and fragility of nature, asking the viewer to resect and preserve it, in the face of a worsening climate crisis. She plays with light among trunks and moss, revealing a hidden anatomy: luminous threads that map canopy breath, slow decay and the delicate balance between growth and loss. The Ukraine-born, Switzerland-based artist combines digital and analogue methods to speak about humanity’s changing relationship to our environment and the Anthropocene.
The surreal nocturnal landscapes in The Ecotone series explore the tension between human control and the wilderness. Jarrett Murphy uses exposures as long as two hours on analog film, and carefully controlled studio lighting to transform familiar landscapes. The results are otherworldly scenes, with vivid colours and sharp lighting that today might give the impression that they have been artificially generated or edited. This ongoing series examines nature as both shaped by and resistant to human intervention, reflecting Murphy’s evolving relationship with wilderness, artifice, beauty, and the unknown.
These artists will feature in States of Becoming, the Aesthetica Art Prize 2026 Exhibition at York Art Gallery from 17 July – 15 November. Find out more: yorkartgallery.org.uk
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1. Ellie Davies, Ebb and Flow, (2025).
2. Ellie Davies, Ebb and Flow, (2025).
3. Sean Du, Above the Treeline, (2026).
4. Viet Ha Tran, The Soul of Landscape, (2025).
5. Anna Korbut, Magic Forest (2019-2025).
6. Jarrett Murphy, The Ecotone, (2025).
