A new addition has arrived at Liverpool waterfront. The artwork, titled Skalli, will stay in place at Liverpool Parish Church for 12 months. Created by Wirral-based artist Patric Rogers, it has won the Liverpool Sculpture Prize 2026.
Winner Announced
The winner of this year's Liverpool Sculpture Prize has been revealed. Skalli, created by artist Patric Rogers, will remain on the plinth at Liverpool Parish Church for 12 months. The artwork is a seated figure, part fish, part human, drawn from folklore and rooted in its proximity to the River Mersey.
Winner Patric Rogers is a Liverpool-born and Wirral-based artist, working across sculpture, film and interdisciplinary forms. His more recent body of work explores how history, folklore and mythology shape belonging, and how these stories persist through people and environments.
He is a founding member of Material Matters, a Merseyside-based collective working across artistic and curatorial projects.
Artist's Statement
He said: “Public art has the ability to add a layer of storytelling to a city’s streets, and what I wanted to explore with Skalli is the idea of how true that storytelling is. The act of creating a piece of artwork to reflect a story gives it weight and heft, but it also becomes part of the story's presumption of accuracy - ‘it must be true, there is an artwork of it’. Skalli is a myth, a folklore, but is it real? It plays with the idea of a tale about a creature from the river, interwoven in our sense of identity.”
About the Prize
Managed by Liverpool Business Improvement District and Liverpool Parish Church, the Liverpool Sculpture Prize sees a new work installed each year on the plinth at St Nicholas Church. Open to any sculptor working in the UK, it is one of the last remaining open, annual sculpture prizes in the UK. The prize to the winning artist, alongside the exhibition of the work, is £2,500.
Judging Panel
The winning artwork is selected by a judging panel which includes Rector of Liverpool Fr Philip Anderson, curator at DuoVision James Lawler, art critic and writer from the Double Negative Laura Robertson, James Minshull from Taylor Wessing, Ben Stephenson, current winner of Liverpool Sculpture Prize, and Joanna Rowlands from Liverpool Experience Campus.
Reaction from the Church
Fr Anderson said: "Liverpool Parish Church is the city's original public space, and we're delighted so many people have engaged each year with the changing artwork displayed on our plinth - encounters that help people see the world differently, and often bring a smile of recognition. This year's commission is in the best traditions of the prize - the work of a skilful sculptor, Patric Rogers, speaking to the city's maritime heritage, and inviting Liverpool to ponder, with the mysterious, strangely familiar, Skalli."
