Submit your entry now!
Click here
List of finalists for the Luxembourg Art Prize
List of finalists for the 2021 Luxembourg Art Prize
Group 1
Christian Bold
▸ 42, Germany, Painting
“While meticulously preparing each painting, I try to find and maintain a balance between an affirming enthusiasm and an implicit skepticism, between pleasure in the show and a disdain for clichés. The wordplay in the title of the work, which is a reference to a dance, is meant to suggest the ritualized elements of a street fight. The visual allusion to Hokusai’s woodblock print, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” doesn’t just make the composition more dynamic, it also creates a median line with one of my visual models.”
Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux
▸ 26, France, Painting
“Naitre à soi [Finding Oneself] is the energy with which we work on our own uniqueness while using a library of references that are plural. It’s actually a phenomenon of creolization, of archipelization: the way that different cultural references branch out to each other across geographic areas and mental landscapes, forming a contact zone that I try to transcribe into a composition, a canvas.”
Susan Kremer
▸ 29, Czech Republic & Hungary, Digital arts
“My series Empty Spaces represents my approach and my interpretation of the fear of emptiness caused by the virus. When I walked through the empty streets, I felt like I was trespassing on private property, crossing the border into a place where I never should have been. The skeleton of the cities that loomed around me during these daily walks filled up with digital life after curfew, once we found ourselves trapped within our own walls.”
Jennifer Lescouët
▹ 34, France, Photography
“It was in the context of suddenly going deaf at age eight that, during adolescence, I became interested in photography. It was a tool that, early on, allowed me to express myself and develop a “gaze that hears.” I transcribe the movements of sign language, playing with the photographic exposure time. The challenge is to show the movement of the sign while keeping the model’s face in focus.”
Zoran Mishe
▸ 37, Bulgaria & North Macedonia, Printmaking, Etching
“In printmaking, sharing and teamwork are essential to developing one’s personal talents. In this series on Legos, I’m trying to understand the way our interpretations of the world vary according to age. When children build with Legos, they construct their own visions of the world. The question is to know whether, once they grow up, they will create the same representation of the world if they play the same game.”
Francis O'Shaughnessy
▸ 41, Canada, Photography
“During my research, I had the idea of setting up a bellows device in front of a computer to convert digital representations into wet collodion. I wanted to revisit previous productions and “recontextualize,” reinterpret my favorites. The result turned out to be so interesting that I made a series. In this way, I have anchored ancient processes with the technology of today.”
Celina Portella
▸ 44, Brazil, Mixed media (Photography)
“I’m interested in the representation of the body and its relationship with space. My work has a profound connection with the world of choreography, because of my professional experience with dance. Using the artifice of trompe l'oeil and the radical integration of media, I work in the ambiguous terrain between the material and the immaterial, between the world’s objectivity and illusion.”
Jeanne K Simmons
▸ 57, United States (Washington), Sculpture, Decorative arts
“I am passionate about working in nature, with natural materials, to address issues concerning women, humanity and the Earth. The work presented is a celebration of the beauty of the natural world, and the beauty of our place in that world.”
Group 2
Nina K Ekman
▹ 42 years old, Denmark and Norway, Sculpture (Textile)
“I grew up in the north of Norway, and my relationship with nature is a personal passion. The selected work questions the unsustainability of our modern lifestyles and invites the observer to reflect on our linear consumption methods, fast fashion and the consequences of our negligence on the future of the planet. I use second-hand clothing and wool scraps from the textile industry to create my works. Turfting is a method for weaving rugs.”
Anna Guadagnini
▸ 38 years old, United Kingdom & Italy, Photography
“My work is comprised mainly of portraits. My intimate approach and the autobiographical nature of my practice often translate into self-portraits. My photos present a powerful narrative, an intermediary, part of a larger story. For this project in particular, Clarissa Pinkola’s book, Women Who Run With the Wolves, was a big source of inspiration.”
Kyle Hoffmann
▹ 36 years old, Australia, Photography
“Having grown up in Wisconsin, my artistic outlook was primarily passed on to me by my grandfather, a watercolor artist. My photographic creation is more like the creation of a painting. My method focuses on distilling the image down to its fundamental parts and emphasizes lines, shapes and movement in the eyes of the viewer.”
Leonardo Laino
▸ 41 years old, Italy, Decorative Arts (Mosaic)
“The art of mosaic is ‘a small piece that, at first glance, is useless but when combined with others, creates beauty’. The work presented is the result of a long and almost obsessive search to add malleability to the mosaic technique. Marble, which is a heavy material in itself, takes on fluidity and lightness in a rippling play of waves which is reminiscent of the shape of a scarf.”
Jerci Maccari
▹ 72 years old, Brazil, Painting, 6th time participating
“In my paintings, I develop a socio-geographic-cultural and historical account of family farming, widely practiced in the southern part of the country and strongly influenced by European immigration to Brazil in the early 20th century. The absence of faces on my characters is a social critique of the lack of importance given to rural workers.”
Pilar Martínez
▹ 40 years old, Spain, Photography
“I experiment with my own body in sometimes unsettling places where it seems that neither time nor space exist. In this work, I wanted to capture the intangible and fleeting side of my being, and my camera proved to be the perfect instrument to help me succeed.”
Ryu Morizane
▹ 29 years old, Japan, Drawing, 2nd time participant
“I strive to explore new ways of representing flowers in drawings. Monochromatic with its flower motif, this design has a structure that gives a simple and symbolic impression. It took over a year and a half to complete.”
Laisvydė Šalčiūtė
▸ 57 years old, Lithuania, Painting, 2nd time participant
“In my work, I collect images that interest me and random bits of text on the Internet. I recycle them, as one would do with plastic bottles, and I rewrite them by changing their context and meaning through the principle of paradox. I then reuse them in a new work to create a visual fairy tale for adults which presents our reality as it’s constructed by the representation.”
Group 3
Saoud Abdallah
▹ 45 years old, Jordan & Syria, Mixed Media
“I always think that a work of art should be as simple and as expressive as possible. I like the austerity and simplicity of shapes and colors. All my works are made from natural black sand with no artificial colors. The sand used comes from the Jebel Shihan volcano in the city of Soueïda in Syria. The white is zinc dust or titanium powder.”
Holly Boruck
▸ 66 years old, United States (California), Painting
“I have a deep interest in the human psyche and in earthly experiences. In my work, I strive to capture the richness of the human experience through expressions on faces and in body movements, all while representing the intellect, emotions and spirit. The work presented explores the relationship between humans and nature, and in particular how human activity accelerates the effects of entropy on the natural environment.”
Fabian Bürgy
▸ 41 years old, Switzerland, Sculpture
“I create a minimalistic world inspired by a wide range of objects and appearances of the most ordinary. Tetrapods are a type of structure used to prevent erosion and to reinforce coastal structures such as seawalls and breakwaters. The work presented is my symbolic sculpture of 2020. It’s a symbol of the pandemic, but also of humanity exposed to the forces of nature, such as climate change.”
Oblivion Dope
▹ 26 years old, Portugal, Digital Art
“I’m passionate about nature, culture and technology, and this interest is reflected in the way I draw an image. In this digital work, "Blue Lady", I decided to illustrate a female character in an allegorical world, where nature and animal life blend together in a coherent way and create a mystical and colorful image.”
Mila Hacke
▸ 48 years old, Germany, Photography
“My work is an architectural photography research project that currently focuses on the Allies in Berlin and the architectural heritage of the four powers. The camera is my research tool. Through the focused image, I can show references by way of dialogues with other buildings and other eras.”
INSANE 51
▸ 29 years old, Greece, Street Art
“My main concept is based on love stories. My style is a double vision exposure technique that requires 3D glasses to see the various layers. I always use skeletons and portraits, because no matter how much we try to portray ourselves, in the end we are just bones and a skeleton. We're all the same inside. We’re all humans.”
Alena Kutnikova
▹ 39 years old, Russia, Photography
“I took advantage of the isolation during the forced confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic to begin photographing still lifes, being inspired by the Flemish paintings of the 17th century to reinterpret this theme in a modern way. I try to imagine which materials and accessories the Dutch masters might use if they were alive in our time.”
Miriam Pertegato
▸ 43 years old, Italy, Painting & Collage on Paper
“The drawing presented represents a sleeping nude Venus as a child. Next to her sits a little Cupid who is patiently waiting for her to wake up and is amused by watching a little garter snake in his hand. It is a work that comes from my great admiration for the Venus of Dresden by Giorgione and from my interest in the iconography of the sleeping Venus, that is, the celebration of inert, pure and natural beauty, the promise of awakening and, in this case, of development and maturation.”
List of finalists for the 2020 Luxembourg Art Prize
Monika Bulaj
▹ 54, Italy and Poland. Photography.
2nd entry
“My work concerns minorities in danger, nomads, and pilgrims. I look for places that serve as bridges located at cultural and spiritual borders, at the crossroads of forgetting minorities, relating the weakest beliefs and traditions, their fragile resistance, as well as their openness to dialogue.”
Ann Carrington
▸ 58, United Kingdon. Sculpture.
“My sculptures tell stories with everyday objects; using a variety of found objects is a fundamental element of my work. My metallic flower bouquets form a modern-day memento mori.”
Sara Genn
▸ 48, Canada (British Columbia) & USA (California). Painting
“According to the principles of the Japanese aesthetic wabi-sabi, objects and experiences increase in beauty when they evoke a feeling of spiritual desire. These paintings also strive to offer a space for visual pleasure with objects that occupy the space in a way that blurs the signifiers of genre, art, and monuments.”
Dieudonné Gottfried Zola
▸ 23, Congo (Kinshasa). Painting
“My work focuses on highlighting visible minorities, otherness, and the body and its relationship with space. The representation of the body in this duality that encompasses it; between vulnerability and vehemence.”
麻由美 井上 (Mayumi Inoue)
▸ 32, Japan. Mixed media techniques
“As part of my approach, the hair lost by cancer patients during their treatment is collected, then woven into works of art to give it a second life. The memories of each are woven into the hair which becomes proof of existence, symbols of life.”
Daniela Romanesi
▹ 44, Brazil. Photography.
2nd entry
“I express myself though nature macro photography. This technique represents one of my personality traits: curiosity. After taking this photo, I felt delivered from anxieties that were provoked by my husband’s heart attack, which he has now recovered from.”
Lionel Sabatté
▸ 44, France. Mixed media techniques
“The realm of the living as well as the transformation of material due to the passage of time are at the heart of my work. I cultivate material that carries within it the trace of a living thing: dust, ash, coal, dead skin, tree stumps…These elements are combined with unexpected material and works are thus created.”
Julian Semiao
▸ 23, France. Painting.
2nd entry
“Having been influenced by the strength of raw art and by the vitality of neo-expressionism and free figuration, I draw my sources of inspiration into spontaneous and engaged pop art. I’m showing my vision of a contemporary society that is constantly in motion.”
Tim Smith
▸ 41, Canada (Manitoba). Photography
“I built relationships of trust with the Hutterite communities of western Canada over the course of the last ten years. Their culture continues to be preserved thanks to their deliberate separation from the dominant society and their system of financial self-reliance. They represent perhaps the most successful attempt at community life in modern history. The selected work is the portrait of Justin after his second day of slaughtering thousands of laying hens. The work is hard, and most of the able members of the colony must participate.”
Marc David Spengler
▸ 24, Germany. Painting
“I focus on illustrations and abstract compositions. My creative approach includes creating abstract worlds via the spontaneous painting process. Each of my images is created without drawing pencil on paper, because the first sketch is generally the best and must therefore become the final image. This approach has made me both a creator and an observer.”
Anibal Vallejo
▸ 44, Colombia. Painting
“I am interested first and foremost in the fundamentals of painting: color, shape, composition, movement, and area. In the selected work, the hand-embroidered drawing exorcizes my creative process that lasts for hours, for days, almost like a mantra that completes the pictorial language by giving the painting a third dimension.”
List of finalists for the 2019 Luxembourg Art Prize
Fosca Boggi
▸ Age 58, Italy, merchant
Inspiration: Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat
Sara Bomans
▸ Age 37, Belgium, graphic arts teacher
Inspiration: Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois, Sophie Calle, Hans Op de Beeck, Michael Borremans, Rinus van de Velde
Jenna Hobbs
▹ Age 34, Alberta (Canada), stay-at-home mom
Inspiration: Norman Rockwell, Sally Mann, Kirsten Lewis, Joy Prouty
Yannick Ilito Betofe
▸ 28 years old, Belgium & Congo (Kinshasa)
Inspiration: Caravaggio, Francis Bacon, Jenny Saville, Lucian Freud, Marlene Dumas, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Jérôme Zonder, Leonard Cohen, Sarah kane, Henri Michaux, Andrei Tarkovsky, Tomas Tranströmer, Fabienne Verdier
Clay Johnson
▸ 55 years old, USA (Wyoming)
Inspiration: Agnes Martin, Brice Marden, Diego Velázquez, Edgar Degas, Frank Auerbach, Franz Kline, Kasimir Malevich, Mark Rothko, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Richard Diebenkorn, Richard Serra, Vincent van Gogh, Willem de Kooning, Édouard Vuillard, Robert Natkin
Martin Lyonnet
▸ 31 years old, France
Inspiration: Aaron Siskind, Daniel Buren, Egon Schiele, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pablo Picasso, Jacques Villeglé, Chaïm Soutine, Oscar Munoz, Carlos Cruz-Diez
Adele Razkövi
▸ 41 years old, Austria
Inspiration: Eadweard Muybridge, Leonardo da Vinci, Art Brut, Eduardo Roca, Frederique Edy
Jon Setter
▸ 29 years old, Australia (New South Wales) & USA (Michigan)
Inspiration: Aaron Siskind, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Ellsworth Kelly, Michael Wolf, Piet Mondrian, Richard Diebenkorn, Stephen Shore, Thomas Struth, Yoshinori Mizutani, Andrea Grutzner, Todd Eberle, Gerry Johansson
Izumi Ueda Yuu
▸ 71 years old, Japan & Portugal
Inspiration: Christian Boltanski, Claes Oldenburg, Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, Philip Guston
Duncan Wylie
▸ Age 44, United Kingdom & Zimbabwe
Inspiration: David Hockney, El Greco, Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, Howard Hodgkin, Willem de Kooning, Gordon Matta Clark, Robert Smithson
List of finalists for the 2018 Luxembourg Art Prize
Tsuyu Bridwell
▹ 51 years old, Japan & France
Sources of Inspiration: Alexander Calder, Andy Goldsworthy, Edward Hopper, Gabriel Orozco, Henri Matisse, Jean-Michel Othoniel, John Baldessari, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn
Lúcia Costa
▹ 57 years old, Brazil
Specialty: Acrylic paint
Sources of Inspiration: El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, M. C. Escher, Theo van Doesburg, Vik Muniz, Vincent van Gogh
Alexis Couzino
▸ 26 years old, Canada (Quebec)
Sources of Inspiration: Damien Hirst, David LaChapelle, Jeff Koons
Specialty: Performance, photography, print media.
Anna Herrgott
▸ 35 years old, Germany
Sources of Inspiration: Orlan, Vanessa Beecroft
Shawn Huckins
▸ 34 years old, USA (Colorado)
Specialty: Painting
Sources of Inspiration: David Hockney, Edward Ruscha, George Caleb Bingham, Gilbert Stuart, John Singleton Copley, Richard Estes, Wayne Thiebaud
Hanna Margetson-Rushmore
▸ 22 years old, United Kingdom & USA
Sources of Inspiration: Agnes Martin, Eva Hesse, On Kawara, Sol LeWitt
Specialty: Drawing on paper
Noah James Saunders
▹ 38 years old, USA (Georgia)
Specialty: wire sculpture
Sources of Inspiration: Alexander Calder, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso
Eugenio Schirone
▸ 17 years old, Italy
Sources of Inspiration: Hieronymus Bosch, Paolo Uccello
Specialty: Digital Photography
Ritu Binhay Sinha
▸ 42 years old, India
Sources of Inspiration: Edvard Munch, Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin
Specialty: Painting on paper and mixed media
Ludovic Thiriez
▹ 34 years old, Hungary & France
Sources of Inspiration: Adrian Ghenie, Albert Oehlen, Cecily Brown, Gerhard Richter, Marlene Dumas, Maurizio Cattelan, Michaël Borremans, Neo Rauch, Peter Doig
Géraldine Tobé
▸ 26 years old, Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa)
Sources of Inspiration: Christian Boltanski
List of finalists for the 2017 Luxembourg Art Prize
Maria Eugenia Gamiño Cruz
▸ 56 years old, Mexico
Specialty: Sculpture
Sources of Inspiration: Alexander Calder, Andy Goldsworthy, Anthony Caro, Antony Gormley, Carl Andre, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Gabriel Orozco, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois
Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė
▸ 40 years old, Lithuania
Specialty: Sculpture in cross-stitch on metal
Sources of Inspiration: Banksy, Jeff Koons, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois
Jarik Jongman
▸ 55 years old, Netherlands
Specialty: Painting
Sources of Inspiration: Adrian Ghenie, Anselm Kiefer, Peter Doig
Vladimir Kartashov (Владимир Карташов)
▸ 20 years old, Russia
Specialty: Oil painting
Sources of Inspiration: Diego Rivera, El Greco, Giorgio de Chirico
Jennifer Krause Chapeau
▸ 55 years old, USA (New Jersey)
Sources of Inspiration: Alice Neel, Anselm Kiefer, Chantal Joffe, Eric Fischl, Fairfield Porter, George Bellows, Gerhard Richter, Gustave Caillebotte, Gustav Klimt, John Singer Sargent, Lois Dodd, Neil Welliver, Rackstraw Downes, Vincent van Gogh, Yvonne Jacquette
Jeppe Lauge
▸ 37 years old, Denmark & the Netherlands
Specialty: Painting
Sources of Inspiration: Adrian Ghenie, David Hockney, Peder Severin Krøyer, Peter Doig
Sali Muller
▸ 36 years old, Luxembourg
Specialty: Installation, Sculpture
Sources of Inspiration: Mona Hatoum, Tracey Emin
Alexandra de Pinho
▸ 40 years old, Portugal
Specialty: Fabric, stitched thread, and watercolor on paper
Sources of Inspiration: Ellen Gallagher, Louise Bourgeois, Lygia Clark, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Robert Rauschenberg, Shirin Neshat
Steeven Salvat
▹ 26 years old, France
Specialty: Rotring and India ink drawing on paper, antique engraving
Sources of Inspiration: Albrecht Dürer, Gustave Doré, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Leonardo da Vinci
René Seifert
▸ 36 years old, Germany
Sources of Inspiration: Gerhard Richter, Jackson Pollock, Pierre Huyghe, Rosemarie Trockel, Paul Klee, Alexander McQueen, Sterling Ruby, Christopher Wool, Autechre, Superflex, Santiago Sierra, Allan Turing, Immanuel Kant, Husserl, Wittgenstein, John Berger, Marcuse, Hannah Ahrendt, Foucault, Bourdieux, Einstein, Hawking Uvm
Lalula Vivenzi
▹ 31 years old, Colombia & Italy
Specialty: Photography
Sources of Inspiration: Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, M. C. Escher, Marina Abramović, Sandro Botticelli, Yayoi Kusama
List of finalists for the 2016 Luxembourg Art Prize
Alexei A. Izmaylov
▸ Age 31, Russia and the UK
Speciality: mixed media
Inspiration: Asger Jorn, Cy Twombly, Donald Judd, Edward Ruscha, Erwin Wurm, Francis Bacon, Franz West, Guy Bourdin, Hans Haacke, John Baldessari, Juergen Teller, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Ryan McGinley, Sarah Lucas, Thomas Ruff
Renata Franzky
▹ Age 47, Germany
Speciality: painting
Inspiration: Anselm Kiefer, Caravaggio, El Greco, Lucian Freud, Maria Lassnig, Max Beckmann
Jaeyeol Han
▸ Age 33, South Korea
Speciality: painting
Inspiration: Jenny Saville, Paul Cézanne, Peter Paul Rubens, Willem de Kooning
John Haverty
▸ Age 29, USA (Massachusetts)
Specialities: painting, drawing
Inspiration: Dieric Bouts, Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dalí
Bartosz Kołata
▸ Age 37, Poland and Germany
Speciality: painting
Inspiration: Ambrosius Holbein, Andrzej Wróblewski, David Hockney, Jan van Eyck, Marlene Dumas
Maurice Mbikayi
▸ Age 42, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa
Specialities: video, sculpture
Inspiration: Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Marcel Duchamp, Yinka Shonibare
Graciana Piaggio
▹ Age 45, Argentina
Speciality: photography
Inspiration: Adriana Lestido, Frank Auerbach, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Joel Meyerowitz, Josef Sudek, Minor White, Nicolas de Staël, Richard Diebenkorn, Rinko Kawauchi, Sally Mann, Willem de Kooning
Jose Sierra Vega
▸ Age 26, Colombia
Speciality: photography
Inspiration: Felix Gonzales-Torres, George Platt Lynes, Gilbert & George, Marcel Duchamp, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe, Wilhelm von Gloeden
Melissa Vandenberg
▸ Age 38, USA (Kentucky)
Speciality: sculpture
Inspiration: Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Louise Bourgeois, Shirin Neshat, Yinka Shonibare
Simon Vienne
▸ Age 24, France
Speciality: photography
Second entry to the Luxembourg Art Prize (2015, 2016)
Inspiration: Andreas Gursky, Gregory Crewdson, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Josef Koudelka, Peter Lindbergh, Philippe Halsman, Sebastião Salgado, Stephen Shore, Steve McCurry, Vivian Maier, William Klein, Willy Ronis
List of finalists for the 2015 Luxembourg Art Prize
June Allen
▸ 52 years old, Franco-American. Born in the USA. Lives in France
Frédéric Blaimont
▸ Age 67, French. Born and lives in France.
Xavier Drong
▸ Age 44, French. Born in Belgium, lives in France.
Michel Fouarge
▹ Age 42, Luxembourger. Born and lives in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Albert Janzen
▸ Age 26, German. Born in Russia, lives in the Netherlands
Natalie Lamotte
▸ Age 50, French. Born and lives in France.
Herrel
▹ Age 44, French. Born and lives in France.
Assaf Matarasso
▸ Age 31, Israeli. Born in Israel, lives in France.
Dany Mayer
▹ Age 64, French. Born and lives in France.
Américo Prata
▸ Age 56, Portuguese. Born in Mozambique, lives in Portugal.
Sophie Rambert
▹ Age 45, French. Born and lives in France.