Aesthetica Art Prize 2019

7 March – 14 July, York Art Gallery

Pleased that my painting Split Infinity has been longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2019 (selected from over 4500 artists) and will be published in this year's Future Now anthology.

The Future Now anthology showcases the work of 100 contemporary artists from the Aesthetica Art Prize, some of the most exciting artists from around the world, and it is a dynamic guide to international contemporary art.

My painting will also be part of the Aesthetica Art Prize exhibition at York Art Gallery from 7 March - 14 July, where it will be exhibited digitally.

Split Infinity. 2017. 150 x 150 cm.Acrylic on canvas
© Julie Umerle 

"Umerle paints in series that are open-ended, exploring similarity, repetition and difference within each group of work. Split Infinity is geometric and hard-edged, but also contains free flowing areas where rivulets of paint cascade down the surface of the painting. The canvas is a divided field of blue and green." Aesthetica Magazine.

The Aesthetica Art Prize is an annual exhibition that invites audiences to explore, discover and engage with new ideas. The works on display cover a range of themes from technology, urbanisation and digitisation to population growth and ecological destruction and climate change. We are living in the Anthropocene. It’s the only time in history that human impact has had such a negative effect on the planet.

Great art can change lives. It reveals things we don’t know, encourages us to think differently and to see the world in a new way. Art is a way to convene, discuss and understand the world. There have been considerable shifts in civilisation in the Information Age – resulting in a change in the way we communicate, engage with and interact with each other. There has been a level of disconnect that has not been experienced before. The Digital Age has created a new way of seeing.

The pieces included this year’s exhibition draw on both personal and universal narratives, looking at how we are so connected to the internet and profiles, likes and shares that we are forgetting how to forget something and the wider impact this will have on culture. In the age of globalisation culture is becoming homogenised and identity is fluid. What does this mean for the individual?