Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2026: BearWolf Books Emerging Artist Award Finalists Announced

The unveiling begins – and what a year it has been for the BearWolf Books Emerging Artist Award category! Open to all mediums, we saw an amazing and diverse selection of entries.

Our Jury Panel – including esteemed Arts Champions Catherine K. Gyllerstrom of BearWolf Books and Vicki Fox of Quirky Fox Gallery – have been going through the entries and making the incredibly difficult decisions. Once again, the overall quality of entries was exceptional; we are deeply honoured by our community’s interest in the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize. Now in its 9th year, our annual non-acquisitive international art prize, celebrates diversity and excellence in all static mediums of the representational visual arts – including traditional, digital and photographic media, with wide-ranging techniques, styles and genres from realism to hyperrealism, surrealism.

We have received sculptures in many mediums including wood, marble, soapstone, ceramics, papier and leaf mache, polymer clays, plaster, glass, wire, bones, textiles including: linen, lace cottons and even curtains; jewellery, beads, resins, found objects, iridescent powder and much more! The innovation and imagination of the artists who have entered has amazed us. Every year we are introduced to new ideas and levels of experimentation.

We have enjoyed painting artworks made using materials including: watercolours, acrylics, inks, Gouache, coloured pencils, gold leaf and crayons.

Drawing artworks included the use of: graphite, coloured pencils, pen, charcoal, ink, pastels, and even collage elements!

Digital artworks included the use of: Escape Motions Rebelle Pro, XPPen Artist Pro 16, Apple iPad, Wacom Cintiq Pro + 16, Wacom Intuos Pri, Affinity Designer 2, Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, DAZ Studio, Blender, Illustrator, Sketchbook, Snapseed, Krita, and Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Lightroom.

Additionally, Photography entries included the use of apparatus and software by: Canon, Sony, Mamyia, Leica, Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, printing and development equipment, and even collaged photographs.

The Prizes

BearWolf Books Emerging Artist Award

The BearWolf Books Emerging Artist Award 1st prize winner will receive:

• $3,000 USD cash, generously donated by Catherine K. Gyllerstrom, Collector, Art Consultant, Owner & Art Director of BearWolf Books, an independent publishing house that specialises in Illustrated Fantasy, Mythology, and Stories for Young Readers.
• A beautiful, specially commissioned glass art award trophy.
• The opportunity to exhibit in the prestigious Beautiful Bizarre Magazine exhibition at Modern Eden Gallery in San Francisco, USA, alongside 100+ of the world’s best contemporary representational artists.
• Exposure to a successful commercial gallery’s collector base with the opportunity to sell their work.
• 12 month social media advertising package (Beautiful Bizarre Magazine: 2 million+ followers across all social media platforms).
• Winning artwork printed in the December 2026 issue of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, as part of the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize editorial.
• Exclusive in-depth interview published on the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize and Beautiful Bizarre Magazine websites+ shared on social media.
• Profile listing [including artwork gallery] on the Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory for 12 months. The go-to platform for artists, curators and collectors to discover exceptional artists and explore their work.
• A year’s worth of inspiration – a print subscription to Beautiful Bizarre Magazine.

2nd prize winner will receive:

• $1,000 USD cash, generously donated by Poetic Tiger Gallery. Poetic Tiger Gallery is a progressive online gallery and curatorial platform featuring national and international contemporary, representational, and narrative art from both established and emerging artists. with an artist-first approach, including pop-up exhibitions and collaborative projects.
• 6 month social media advertising package (Beautiful Bizarre Magazine: 2 million+ followers across all social media platforms).
• Profile listing [including artwork gallery] on the Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory for 12 months. The go-to platform for artists, curators and collectors to discover exceptional artists and explore their work.
• A year’s worth of inspiration – a print subscription to Beautiful Bizarre Magazine.

3rd prize winner will receive:

• $500 USD cash, generously donated by Poetic Tiger Gallery. Poetic Tiger Gallery is a progressive online gallery and curatorial platform featuring national and international contemporary, representational, and narrative art from both established and emerging artists. with an artist-first approach, including pop-up exhibitions and collaborative projects.
• 4 month social media advertising package (Beautiful Bizarre Magazine: 2 million+ followers across all social media platforms).
• Profile listing [including artwork gallery] on the Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory for 12 months. The go-to platform for artists, curators and collectors to discover exceptional artists and explore their work.
• A year’s worth of inspiration – a print subscription to Beautiful Bizarre Magazine.

The Winners in each Award category and the Grand Prize Award Winner will be invited to participate in the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine curated exhibition ‘Glimmer’ at Modern Eden Gallery in San Francisco, CA, United States later this year, alongside 100+ of the world’s best contemporary representational artists!

A glimmer is the exact opposite of a trigger. Glimmers are small, everyday moments that make you feel joy, happiness, peace, or gratitude – which can help cue your nervous system to feel safe or calm. [The term was coined by Deb Dana.]

From the 200 Finalists across all Award categories, the Jury Panel will select the Grand Prize Award Winner.

The Grand Prize Award Winner of the 2026 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize will receive:

• $10,000 USD cash, donated by our Platinum sponsors Catherine K. Gyllerstrom, Bearwolf Books, INPRNT, RAYMAR, 33PA and MPB.
• A beautiful, specially commissioned glass art award trophy.
• The opportunity to exhibit in the prestigious Beautiful Bizarre Magazine exhibition at Modern Eden Gallery in San Francisco, USA, alongside 100+ of the world’s best contemporary representational artists.
• Exposure to a successful commercial gallery’s collector base with the opportunity to sell their work.
• 10 page in-depth interview editorial published in Beautiful Bizarre Magazine December 2026 issue.
• Winning artwork printed in the December 2026 issue of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, as part of the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize editorial.
• Exclusive in-depth interview published on the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize and Beautiful Bizarre Magazine websites + shared across Beautiful Bizarre Magazine social media.
• Profile listing [including artwork gallery] on the Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory for 12 months. The go-to platform for artists, curators and collectors to discover exceptional artists and explore their work.
• 12 month social media advertising package (Beautiful Bizarre Magazine: 2 million+ followers across all social media platforms).
• A year’s worth of inspiration – a print subscription to Beautiful Bizarre Magazine.

Art & Fable Puzzle Company People’s Choice Award

The Art & Fable Puzzle Company People’s Choice Award Winner will be selected by popular vote from the 200 Finalists. The Art & Fable Puzzle Company People’s Choice Award Winner will receive $1,000 USD cash, generously donated by Art & Fable Puzzle Company.

Voting will open on 2 September [AEDT, Australian Eastern Daylight Time]. To ensure you don’t miss your chance to vote, please join our email mailing list here.

Additionally, the Art & Fable Puzzle Company People’s Choice Award Winner will enjoy a year’s worth of social media advertising through the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine to ensure they are able to connect with the right audience, raise their profile, and of course to grow their social media following. They will also enjoy a Profile listing [including artwork gallery] on the Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory for 12 months, a 12 month Beautiful Bizarre Magazine print subscription, and an in-depth interview published on the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine and Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize websites, giving readers an insight into their vision and practice!

In addition, the major sponsors will choose one outstanding work from their award category to receive an Honourable Mention. Stay tuned to learn more!

The Sculpture Award, MPB Photography Award, INPRNT Digital Art Award, 33PA Drawing Award, Catherine K Gyllerstrom Imaginative Realism Award and the RAYMAR Painting Award Finalists will be announced later this week.

So without further ado we are proud to announce the 2026 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, BearWolf Books Emerging Artist Award Finalists…

BearWolf Books Emerging Artist Award Finalists

2026 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize

An interpretation of so badly wanting to leave your past behind and get a move on with your life. Whether it’s a person, habit, place, you can’t help but want to stay. Stuck between two lives, clinging onto something that’s willing to leave or loosely holding onto something new that could grow into anything. You could almost lose your head.

My “We Shall Keep on Loving” piece depicts the inevitable pain that deep love may cause as time passes by. It was mainly inspired by my anticipatory grief towards my ageing dog, whom I no longer have a long time with. As for many, emotions have always been the main inspiration for me as an artist and I tend to gravitate more towards fantasy settings. Combining the two and depicting a very real and painful feeling in a not-so-real world was one of my main goals with this painting.

There are some of us through the ritual of the nap — the skilled sleepers — who are aware of the space between the waves of consciousness, able to navigate the lake where science and poetry converge, without ascending into the waking sun or falling into the abyss of the subconscious. A winged body lying down: the vessel that sails. The sailor, the liminal bird — one eye closed, one eye open — ready to see what lies beyond the veil. Two marbles, two states. The body that remains and the consciousness that rises — joined at the threshold, where the stone’s own vein marks the eye that sleep has closed.

In this painting, I combine a figurative and relatively classical approach to form and detail with a more surreal expression. The animals are recognizable, but placed in an unrealistic setting, with deliberate “wrong” colour choices that challenge expectations. I use contrasts such as the inverted landscape beneath the surface and the dynamics between the figures to create an open narrative. Rather than offering a fixed meaning, the work invites the viewer to reflect and interpret how the elements relate to one another.

This painting was inspired by the merging of Ancient Briton and Anglo Saxon peoples in Britain, but it’s really about how our human similarities outweigh our ethnic or cultural differences. While many of us continue to believe in ‘us’ and ‘them’, modern DNA tests are proving that regardless of our beliefs, we are far more interconnected than we think. Tribes and peoples have fought each other throughout the history of the world, but eventually those who exist in the same space can’t help but succumb to the human desire to breed, connecting bloodlines and confirming the basic humanity at the core of all of us. This painting is rich with symbolism from the stories the Briton and Saxon peoples told, and the deities, animals and mythical beasts that were significant to their belief systems.

I’m an artist whose practice investigates the strangeness of our relationship with nature through surreal depictions of animals. By employing symbolism and unexpected assemblages, I aim to challenge familiar narratives and question how animals are perceived. My work reflects a lifelong fascination with both wildlife and domesticated creatures, alongside a growing awareness of the risks of misrepresentation in animal imagery. This fascination began in childhood, when I grew up surrounded by cats, dogs, rats, fish, and snails. I often felt a stronger connection with them than with people, and wondered why many others did not share the same perspective. That curiosity continues to shape my practice today, as I continue to reflect on our relationship with animals and nature.

This artwork is a beginning exploration into the intersection of creation myths and the subjugation of the feminine. I aimed to re-conceptualize the story of the slaughter of the primordial mother that appears in multiple creation myths across various early groups.

In this work, woman exists within a space of rivers and the endless flow of life, where movement and stillness intertwine. Birds and fish are also part of this current; they echo experience, change, and freedom. This space is a boundary between reality and imagination, East and West – a place where all of these flow together within the ceaseless movement of life, and where beauty is found within the current itself. These works invite viewers to see life as a continuous flow, with women as a vital, influential, and generative part of that very current.

What happens when two hearts draw close — not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually? This painting is not a depiction of a kiss, but an attempt to capture the raw and fragile space where connection happens. That threshold between two beings — where longing, vulnerability, and trust converge in silence. In “Le Baiser”, I wanted to portray the intensity of intimacy: that moment suspended between merging and separation. A visual echo of how touch, however brief, can leave an imprint far beyond the skin.

Dream Hunters: The unicorn, wolf, and hounds – I invite the viewer to discern which are the hunted, and which are the prey. Founded on an image from a dream, this work is intended as a bridge between our reality and fantasy; it provides a rendered snapshot of a window to another realm with creatures similar to those we know, yet are alien. The work explores the contrast between aggression and calm, and the uncertainty that can lie within both when your perspective is that of an outsider. This takes inspiration from our innate ability to perceive a threat and the function of our amygdala, the ‘lizard brain’. The intention is to encourage viewers to reflect and discern the creatures’ intent towards each other.

This work is a meditation on the brutality and beauty of life and death – a ghostly figure encased in the reeds, its body entwined with the nesting material of its inhabitants, the many wading birds of the swamp. Haloed in the dappled light of the surrounding foliage and detritus, meditating on the cyclical nature of decay and rebirth. This piece can be viewed with the figure facing down or up, changing the focal point of the piece itself depending on the viewer’s desired perspective.

A girl, partially formed, as if being pulled from a lost memory, quietly observes a broken winged butterfly. With curiosity, an idea forms in her young mind for the first time: perhaps broken things are beautiful too.

Anthropomorphism – the attribution of human traits to animals – has shaped human culture for centuries. From Aesop’s fables to medieval bestiaries and modern media, animals have been assigned moral roles that often masquerade as natural truth. Sheep and goats illustrate this clearly: despite their close biological relationship, sheep symbolize righteousness while goats are linked to sin, the devil, and the scapegoat through religious and cultural narratives. In reality, they simply reflect different survival strategies, not moral character. As Richard Adams wrote in Watership Down, animals exist outside human ethics. By projecting our values onto them, we reveal more about ourselves than the natural world.

I kept returning to cacti. They survive by protecting what is most vital beneath a surface that resists touch. Their paradox became the seed of Endless Drought. Before painting it, I hand-built each cactus, allowing this landscape to exist in the physical world before translating it into oil. As the painting unfolded, I began wondering whether we embody the same paradox. At what point does protection become the landscape we inhabit? And how far can we drift from ourselves before distance begins to resemble a drought?

This purple unicorn in full run was born from the idea that dreams are often wild, distant, and almost impossible to catch. This piece symbolizes our deepest desires. The ones that keep us moving even when they feel out of reach. We all chase something. We all have that “unicorn” in our lives. This piece is a reminder for everyone to keep chasing their dreams!

Vô ảnh in Sino-Vietnamese and its original Chinese characters literal meaning is “No shadow”, the English name is a reference to “Camera Obscrura”. A self examined self-portrait created as a personal project, with the purpose of evoking a sense being trapped, inspired by stories of “haunted” paintings of having “souls” trapped in it, waiting to be release. I ask myself the ultimate question of my own life path pursuit or just an aimless leave drifting with no destination.

This watercolour artwork explores the profound connection between love and nature, where gentleness becomes a universal language. It evokes the innocence of all living things and the beauty of the delicate balance that surrounds us. It invites us to look closely and thoughtfully at every form of life, from the smallest and most discreet to the grandest and most majestic, reminding us that each holds an essential value. Protect nature. Protect love.

Palustris was created using professional grade watercolour paint on premium 100% cotton, 300lbs cold pressed paper. Palustris, Latin for “of the marsh”, was inspired by a kayaking trip among old growth mangroves in Florida. The marsh is where the green heron, snapping turtle and fairies call home. Catfish lurk beneath the surface.

My work emerges from the intersection of survival, memory, and transformation. Stressful and traumatic memories that happened years ago felt like they happened just the other day. These memories were on a daily loop for years- until my brain was rewired. That feeling, of finally being free, is what this work is about.

See also

INTERVIEWSARTART PRIZESCULPTURE

The Imaginative World of Japanese Sculptor Akishi Ueda

In Proximity, after an initial drawing in pencil, and the painting is built up with layers of gouache. A woman and her dog walk toward York Minster, seemingly at ease with the modern-day dinosaur above. Feral populations of rose-ringed parakeets have established themselves across Europe over the last few decades, initially brought from India as pets. As their populations increased, concerns arose over their destructiveness and their tendency to out-compete native birds. While studies in the Netherlands have shown their negative impacts to be minimal, public sentiment remains mixed.

Space Bunny is a surrealist oil painting featuring a collection of elements that don’t fit together to create a larger atmosphere that feels both familial and outlandish. I use materials to their fullest extent, so this work is painted on a canvas I rescued from the side of the road, using oil paint that belonged to my mother over 20 years ago. The subjects of this piece are derived from two characters on an equally outlandish show, the pigeon is a reference to a character wearing an animal head disguise in order to blackmail a UPS delivery man, and the space helmet/fishbowl head in armour references his closest friend who likes to dress up as an astronaut, and is misdiagnosed as having multiple personality syndrome by adults who don’t understand his whimsy.

A reflection on all the loves in life – familial, platonic, romantic – and how tending to these loves bears an abundance of fruit.

The gesture formed by the hands represents a mudra (yoga of the hands) called Samputa mudra (the bucket of the little treasure). This mudra symbolizes the spiral of life that sometimes comes to shake us up and requires permanent adaptation. The hands form a small chest to hold a priceless treasure: experiences, knowledge, hope…

Twilight portrait.

This painting was created in a need to capture a moment of absolute silence — the kind in which a gaze brings a sense of calm and tranquility. The subtle composition conceals emotions hidden within its eyes, while the light gives each strand of fur and every detail a sense of life. In this silence, the painting begins to “breathe” — gently, almost imperceptibly — creating a space where strength and serenity become one.

The 2026 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize is proudly sponsored by:

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