Winner of international art prize exhibiting in Wales announced

Artes Mundi 11, the prestigious international art prize currently exhibiting work from six artists in venues around Wales, has announced its winner.

The artists involved presented their work in a group exhibition in Cardiff, with individual exhibitions across the country.

Antonio Paucar, a Peruvian artist who lives and works in Berlin and Huancayo, capital city of Peru’s Junín region, was announced the winner of the £40,000 prize.

Paucar comes from a family of artisans, and his work focuses on performance, sculpture and video, exploring conflicts faced by indigenous peoples and environmental threats to place and home.

At Mostyn in Llandudno, he is exhibiting a series of handwoven alpaca wool sculptures and performance videos documenting their creation.

He also staged a new site-specific piece inspired by north Wales, which left behind an imprint of limestone from a barefooted walk he took across Y Gogarth, before performing a handstand against the gallery wall.

Another black and white alpaca wool sculpture is on show at Cardiff’s National Museum, along with films exploring the ecological and spiritual loss in Peru’s Huaytapallana mountain range.

The film also includes a scene of Paucar writing, in his native wanka lima (Quechua wanka), “The heart of the sacred mountains is weeping blood” using his own blood.

According to The Guardian, which also shared a review from writer Johnathan Jones describing Artes Mundi 11 as “stagey and false”, Paucar plans to spend his £40,000 prize to establish a cultural centre in Peru.

The Artes Mundi 11 Jury said: “We find all presentations deserving of recognition, as all artists are confronting the pressing matters of our times from a situated position and with unwavering rigour.

“After extensive deliberation, we nominate Antonio Paucar for AM11 Prize, as an artist whose expansive practice encapsulates a long-term commitment to and engagement with his local environment and communities, creating work that speaks powerfully to marginalised contexts and extracted histories.”

Adam Lewis-Smythe, Director at Mostyn, said: “We are delighted to be part of Artes Mundi 11 and to celebrate that Antonio Paucar has been awarded this highly prestigious prize for such an accomplished body of work.

“Audiences locally, and visiting nationally and internationally, have relished seeing his works in Llandudno, both new and existing sculptures and related performance videos as well as a brand new work rooted in our north Wales landscape”

Another exhibiting artist, Sancintya Mohini Simpson, was named winner of the Derek Williams Trust Artes Mundi Purchase Prize.

Her works, spanning painting, video, poetry and performance and exploring migration, memory and trauma, will be acquired for future exhibitions for Amgueddfa Cymru.

Originally from Brisbane and descended from indentured labourers sent from India to work on colonial sugar plantations in South Africa, Simpson presented watercolour landscapes referencing both Indian miniature painting and Indigenous Australian art.

At her solo exhibition at Chapter, she debuted new works using sugar cane as pigment, including scroll-like pieces with handwritten text, as well as a large sculptural sound installation with a live performance in the space on the exhibition’s opening night.

Jamie Seaton, selector for The Derek Williams Trust, said: “The Derek Williams Trust is absolutely delighted that Sancintya Mohini Simpson has been awarded the Derek Williams Trust Artes Mundi Purchase Prize.

“The judging panel was impressed by the breadth of the artist’s work which, spanning painting, sculpture, installation, film, performance and the written word, holds to a clear individuality and unity of purpose.

“The works on paper particularly impressed: the employment of North Indian miniature techniques traditionally associated with mythologised histories serving to universalise the injustices depicted, while the works’ delicacy, accuracy and beauty brings the viewer paradoxically – and shockingly – right back, face to face, with specific horrors.”

For more information on Artes Mundi 11’s exhibitions across Wales, showing until 1 March 2026, visit the official site here.