MADRID, Spain – Spanish artist Cristina Mejías won the 16th illy SustainArt Award at ARCOmadrid2023. The series of artwork of seven different pieces from the section “General Programme” of Cristina Mejías show the transformation of a standard and hegemonic narratives to question the current hierarchy, order and power in society. The artists seeks different creative expressions to be aligned with her own personal memories full of sensibility, sensuality and poetry.
The jury, composed of Patrizia Sandretto de Rebaudengo (Curator and founder of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo), Tania Pardo (Deputy Director of the CA2M Museum, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Ianko López (Journalist specialized in visual art) and Carlo Bach (Artistic Director of illycaffè) chose this “promising, complex and interesting young artists of Jerez de la Frontera (Spain)” for the illy prize worth 15.000 euros to produce a work for next edition of ARCOmadrid.
This award, for its 16th consecutive years, reckons the work of young and emerging artists of 40 years old and younger.
Her work is shown at both galleries Alarcon Criado and Rodriguez.
illy SustainArt
illy SustainArt began in 2007 as a way of broadening illycaffè’s commitment to contemporary art by building relations with emerging artists. This prize is aimed to boost the career of young creators at the international level, giving them a concrete opportunity for visibility, experimentation and growth.
The other finalists of the illy SustainArt Prize were:
- Sofía Salazar Rosales (Ecuador, 1999), galería ChertLüdde
- Dalia Gonçalves (Portugal, 1982), galería Rodríguez
- Sahatsa Jauregi (Brasil, 1984), ATM
- Miguel Marina (España, 1989), The Goma
- Austin Martin White (Estados Unidos, 1984), Captain Petzl
- Blanca Bondi (Sudáfrica, 1986), Mor Charpentier
- Eva Fábregas (España, 1988), Bombon
- Adelita Husni Bey (Italia, 1985), Laveronica Arte Contemporánea
Previous winners of the illy SustainArt Prize were:
- 2008: Matheus Rocha Pitta (Brasil)
- 2009: Avinash Veeraraghavan (India)
- 2010: Camilo Ontiveros (México)
- 2011: André Komatsu (Brasil)
- 2012: Voluspa Jarpa (Chile)
- 2013: Julia Rometti & Victor Costales (México)
- 2014: Diego Bruno (Argentina)
- 2015: Sergio Zevallos (Perú)
- 2016: Felipe Cohen (Brasil)
- 2017: Iván Argote (Colombia)
- 2018: Marcelo Cidade (Brasil)
- 2019: Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe (Venezuela)
- 2020: Hellen Ascoli (Guatemala)
- 2021: Daniela Ortiz (Perú)
- 2022: Ana Navas (Ecuador)
