Alina Sokolova (c) Zhanna Lyatova
The Erste Bank Art Award 2025 goes to Alina Sokolova
Jury Statement
Alina Sokolova's artistic practice takes the intensity, vulnerability, and weirdness of being alive nowadays and creates a deep, fragmented yet coherent storyline which is in the abyss between the personal and the political. Her expressive paintings - along with the expanded painterly space she develops through collaborations with other creators, often extending into video projections and choreographic forms - unfold as a kind of visual diary. This body of work traces her experience as an artist and a woman, reflecting on rising conflicts, political uncertainty, and the haunting presence of war. Through symbolist and surrealist motifs, Sokolova navigates a world where the very right to life is continually questioned.
Drawing on the aesthetics of mannerism and charged with symbolic intensity, her practice challenges viewers to consider the fragility of peace and the politics of presence in moments of crisis. Who holds the right to life in the present moment, and how is that right negotiated, claimed, or denied? In confronting these questions, Sokolova unveils the rawness of survival and the contested space between personal memory and collective trauma.
Jury Members
Laura Amann (Independent Curator, Vienna)
Ruth Goubran (Head of Erste Bank Sponsoringprogramme, Vienna)
Nevena Janković (Executive Management & Artistic Direction, DAS WEISSE HAUS, Vienna)
Dr. Denise Quistorp (Director, Austrian Cultural Forum Prague)
Finalists 2025
Martin Chramosta, Fanni Futterknecht, Max Freund, Silke Grabinger, Josepha Edbauer, Lisa Großkopf, Miriam Hamann, Nicole Weniger
Alina Sokolova
Alina Sokolova, (*1995, Uzhhorod, Ukraine) studied Visual Arts in Uzhhorod/UA, sculpture, and installation at the Academy of Fine Art and Design, Bratislava/SK, and photography as a guest student at HFBK in Hamburg/DE. In 2021 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna/AT. Her artistic practice can be described as an elaborate exploration of movement. She has a special interest in the repetitive gestures of contemporary labor, the notion of care and carrying, and the mechanization of our everyday life. She studies movements that have become common property and are a testament to their time and the ever-changing social climate. The questions of animal-human cohabitation and care, leisure, productivity, consumption, and mass choreography phenomena in the age of digital media are all present in her paintings. She was shortlisted for the Pinchuk Art Centre Art Prize, Kyiv, UA, in 2020. Her works were shown in various group shows in Vienna, AT, and throughout Europe, such as the Museum of Western and Oriental Art, Odesa, UA, the Museum of Art, Zilina/SK, and Stadtmuseum Berlin among others.
Željka Aleksič (c)
The Erste Bank Recognition Art Award goes to Željka Aleksić
Jury Statement
Željka Aleksić in her practice reveals the price of becoming and being an artist, both literally and poetically. She details the hardships of manual labor, the precariousness of an ever-expiring residence status, and the power of matriarchal support that shape the conditions under which she, and many others, study and make art. Marx's Kapital is not just a critique of political economy but a human reality, raising urgent questions about outdated notions of citizenship, alienation of labor, the cost of education, and what constitutes artistic work. At the core of her oeuvre lies a duality: the reality of being an artist devoted to expression and the struggle for existential security and stability. This tension permeates both the themes she explores and the conditions of her production. Aleksić's work becomes a site where personal survival and artistic agency converge, acting as both an act of creation and a strategy of endurance, exposing how the pursuit of a meaningful artistic life is inseparably linked to the fight for basic rights, recognition, and belonging.
Jury Members
Laura Amann (Independent Curator, Vienna)
Ruth Goubran (Head of Erste Bank Sponsoringprogramme, Vienna)
Nevena Janković (Executive Management & Artistic Direction, DAS WEISSE HAUS, Vienna)
Dr. Denise Quistorp (Director, Austrian Cultural Forum Prague)
Finalists 2025
Martin Chramosta, Fanni Futterknecht, Max Freund, Silke Grabinger, Josepha Edbauer, Lisa Großkopf, Miriam Hamann, Nicole Weniger
Željka Aleksić
Željka Aleksić (b. 1989, Knjaževac, Serbia) is a visual artist working across painting, performance, and performative sculpture. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 2023, in Contextual Painting under the mentorship of Ashley Hans Scheirl and Despina Stokou. Her artistic practice centers on socio-economic realities, particularly the precarious conditions faced by women in the labor market. Drawing from her working-class background and lived experience, Aleksić’s work critically examines themes such as invisible labor, personal identity, and contemporary beauty standards. Her graduation project Das Kapital (2017–2023) explored the economic struggles of students and earned her the Academy's award for best diploma project. The work also led to her nomination for the prestigious Kunsthalle Wien Prize. In 2024, she received the Start Scholarship and a development grant from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service, and Sport. Aleksić also took part in a mentoring program 2024/2025 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, supported by a competitive scholarship.