Issue 52 On Sale

Issue 52 of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, with artist Allison Reimhold’s painting Lady and the Unicorn on the cover is on sale now! Contact one of our Stockists or Shop Online, but don’t miss this special Issue. Take a peek at what’s inside below.

Inside Beautiful Bizarre Magazine Issue 52

Inside issue 52 we explore the work of Kyla Zoe Rafert, a rare artist whose studio practice and home life are inseparable. The ink that begins every one of her strange and beguiling works is made from walnuts harvested on her five-acre homestead in rural Ohio. The cast of young women and girls populating Kyla’s work are engaged in arresting narratives, full of symbolism. The patterning in her paintings might remind us of homespun folk art, but the compositions and the vibrant colours belong very much to the present. Kyla’s subject is the often-conflicting roles expected of women in today’s world. What views of women linger from the past? And what expectations may continue into the future? Kyla is not afraid to pose challenging questions about her own experiences and her daughters’ future– not just to us, but also to an art world that can sometimes be monolithic in opinion. There’s a lot of hidden courage behind these quiet tableaus.

“I like painting figures that are almost hovering in this in-between space between innocence and losing it, or have thoroughly cast off their innocence and begun to write their own narrative.” -Kyla Zoe Rafert

There is something quietly radical about beginning with a map. Not the digital kind – blue dot pulsing, routes recalculating – but the paper ones: creased, faded, already carrying the weight of other lives. British artist Ed Fairburn’s work begins there, in surfaces that remember where they’ve been. From a distance, his portraits resolve into faces we think we recognise; up close, they dissolve into streets, rivers, borders –systems laid bare. It’s a sleight of hand that feels less like illusion and more like revelation.

“While some art is very literal, mine is more a visual exploration, which echoes ideas of co-existence between people and place and a wider sense of belonging.” -Ed Fairburn

Glitz, glamour and a splash of Hollywood magic are captured within the canvases of cover artist Allison Reimold. As a born and bred Angeleno, Allison’s work takes on a Hollywood-esque edge without the bitter bite of the movie-making realities of the entertainment industry. Each of her pop-surrealist paintings offer a cinematic viewing experience where she can recount many of the heroic tales of the women she portrays. Wondrous warriors fight alongside their animal companions, magnificent mages electrify the sky and sing with the ghosts of the wind, fashion forward druids make deals with life and death, and even Mother Nature herself is captured in her pre-Raphaelite beauty as she blends herself into the foliage. In this realm, the feminine form is uplifted, and femininity is placed in the starring role. Her work is a beautiful reminder that we can be the heroines of our own stories so long as we believe in ourselves and our capabilities.

“Painting is like magic! The idea that I can see something in my imagination that does not exist, wiggle a paintbrush in my fingers for a while, and then that image comes to life out of nothing, is pretty cool.” – Allison Reimhold

Brace yourself because Cinta Vidal has spent her career deconstructing the very ground we stand on. Cinta doesn’t just paint buildings; she constructs “un-gravitational” ecosystems where multiple perspectives coexist on a single plane. Her work explores the idea that reality is not a singular experience but a plurality of viewpoints. In a typical piece, you might see a family dinner occurring on what appears to be the ceiling, while another figure wanders through a garden oriented at a 90-degree angle. This complexity is a deliberate metaphorical tool, used to highlight the internal dimensions and hidden layers of the everyday.

“In a painting with multiple characters, for example, the focus can shift depending on the orientation. This plurality is enriching and essential, as it turns the work into a space of possibilities, highlighting that reality does not have a single point of view.” – Cinta Vidal

Sean Mahan’s paintings are vignettes from an era which is part remembered and part lore. His paintings operate as a window to a romanticised time which we either lived through, have been told about or dream about but which, one way or another, lives on in popular consciousness. Sean’s work sings to that part of us which finds the vintage and retro alluring.

It is tempting to begin with the masks. Everyone does. The mask is the first thing you notice in Penelope Boyd’s paintings: opaque, unyielding, a refusal. But to start there would be misleading, because what Penelope is really painting is not concealment so much as permission. Permission to look away. Permission to move through the world unobserved. Permission, finally, not to explain oneself.

“The mask is not an absence but a redistribution. These girls do not need to perform legibility. They wander storms. They smoke cigarettes. They enter danger alone. There is freedom in this solitude – not rebellion for its own sake, but self-possession.” – excerpt from Penelope Boyd’s article by Andrea Kovacic

Time to get inspired as we learn what Alexandra Mazzanti, Director of Dorothy Circus Gallery, would like to add to her personal art collection in this Issue’s Curator’s Wishlist.

Folkloric myths speak through beguiling symbols in porcelain; and ancestral family memories transform into mystical narratives moulded by the hands of an artist steeped deep in Ontario lore. Growing up on majestic Georgian Bay, surrounded by thousands of years of First Nations’ history, ceramic artist Lana Filippone has been profoundly shaped by the spiritual legacies and encounters intrinsic to the iconic, myth-rich landscape of the Canadian Shield.Though initially drawn to functional pottery, Lana quickly pushed the medium into sculptural and experimental territory. Habitually caught in a state of transience between the natural and the supernatural, the living and the dead, Lana’s sculptures are suffused with existential meanings, the symbols she uses creating a liminal space where she can process them. Orchids and carnivorous plants, moths and bees, ghost pipes and ephemeral flames turn into moments captured forever in porcelain; recurring motifs in natural cycles of transformation, a threshold that can help her grapple with existential questions in material form.

In the dark quiet hours before dawn, a woman carrying bits of equipment walks through the trees to find her sacred space. Instead of a wand and grimoire she carries a Canon R6 with an RF 28-70mm F2L lens as she sets up her ritual. The heavy fog begins to lift, and the colossal shapes of trees are illuminated by the waking dawn. This ancient and mystic place has stories to share and there at the centre of it all is Victoria Veil, ready to witness and learn. The Polish photographer and tattoo artist portrays women, through self-portraits, indulging in the freedom to be true to themselves while the haziness of it all meshes dreams with reality.

Janice Sung‘s paintings exude an enigmatic strength, her heroines drawing the viewer in with poise and purpose. However, these are not perfect goddesses. Female beauty lies in that very complexity, an astutely nuanced embodiment of vulnerability and sensuality that deeply resonates with the imperfect humans observing them admiringly, real people who don’t share the benefit of the painterly brush’s quick, transformative touch. To a hopeless romantic drawn to the idea of yearning for something just out of reach, beauty is all about that soft, quiet longing, an ancient perception of melancholy, one of the most beautiful human emotions.

Carla Paine paints poised, luminous figures, placing the female form at the centre of a quietly resonant classical language. Carla’s paintings are charged with emotional presence and a clear sense of the individual. Life on her farm keeps nature close at hand, shaping her rhythms and sharpening her sensitivity to quiet, lived moments. In many ways, she believes that each painting is a quiet self-portrait, and she wants viewers to feel a sense of intimacy – an echo of shared human experience.

“Painting is about making the invisible visible, making the intangible tangible. You receive a vision and then you are tasked with bringing it to fruition, and that’s an incredibly difficult task.” – Adrienne Stein

In our Artist + Artist conversation, Quang Ho and 2025 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, 2nd Prize Painting Award Winner Adrienne Stein revel in the joy that is art. Their hunger to paint is plentiful, and though words like “obsession” arise, it feels more like a synonym for drive than a noun to be wary of. After all, given the choice, we creatives rarely live the 9-5 lifestyle – the urge to create is often a wild, relentless, and fluttering beast. Quang and Adrienne’s love for art is electric, spanning multiple styles and cultures with equal joy. Learning of their deep appreciation, you begin to see how these embed into their creations.

Ellen Jewett mesmerizes us with full page reproductions of her whimsical, mystical mixed media sculptures inside this Issue’s Lookbook Editorial.

In the Quick Q & A editorial, we ask Vanessa Michiels, Yi-Sheng Huang, Abi Castillo, Michael Kennedy, Creature Creature and Clémentine Bal to answer the same four questions:

• What’s a creative risk you’ve taken that completely changed your perspective or practice?
• If your work could whisper one thing to the viewer, what would it say?
• In moments of self-doubt or burnout, what do you do to enable you to keep going?
• Has envy ever shown up in your creative journey? How have you learned to cope with it or transform it?

See also

INTERVIEWSARTPAINTING

Hopelessly Obsessive Creative: Interview with Mab Graves

In this Issues’ Beautiful Bizarre Artist Directory editorial we highlight the work of many exceptional artists and photographers including: Lucia Heffernan, Pamela Becker, Jacqui Butterworth, Hiroshi Hayakawa, Cris James, Gina Matarazzo, Robert Walker, Alex Garant, Sandra Yagi, Behnaz, Yinsey Wang, Anneke Bloema, Theo Polymorphos, Michael Fusco, Melanie Stimmell, Ross Takahashi, Emma Hapner, Sloane Earl, Kuang Chu, Rachel Romano, Daniel Pawłowski, Sid Daniels, Marcos Vian Monken, Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman, Laura Barth, Maysa Bogheiri, María Gordon, Pritha Bhadra, Roch Urbaniak, Vincent Fink, Elouise Roberts, NaBo, Stéphane Pannetier Le Hénaff.

In this issue’s Lust Haves editorial, we are thrilled to share with you some of the most beautiful and bizarre treasures from around the world, thoughtfully curated by our team to adorn your body and home.

Inside Issue 52: Mrs Alice, Merci Maison, klove Studio, Huey Lightshop, Fenton & Fenton, Ethnik Living, Antico, Rikke Laursen, En Gold, Bonnie And Neil, Vaisselle.

In our Letter from the Editor, Danijela Krha Purssey welcomes you to the pages of our 52nd Issue of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, and asks us all to look at at ART as a superpower – and the indelible role it plays in supporting mental health.

“The last couple of years have seen many of us struggle with mental health issues. But we have a super power: ART! Science now recognises that art, whether you are the artist or the viewer can help us with issues like stress, anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Participating in arts activities can build self-esteem, self-acceptance, confidence, empathy, and self-worth.” – Danijela Krha Purssey

In this issue, Danijela discusses the 2026 Beautiful Bizarre Magazine Art Prize, the launch of a brand-new and highly anticipated honour: the Catherine K. Gyllerstrom Imaginative Realism Award, the announcement of the esteemed Art Prize Jurors, and our very exciting curated group exhibitions this year: Return to Beauty, our first exhibition with Outré Gallery in Melbourne, Australia in April; and our seventh exhibition with Modern Eden Gallery, in San Francisco USA in November – Glimmer, where the winners of this year’s Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize will also exhibit.

And last but never least, enjoy an amazing and always beautiful collection from Our Community, featuring some of the amazing hashtagged #beautifulbizarre and tagged @beautifulbizarremagazine artworks from our social media of over 2 million followers!

All this inside Issue 52 // March 2026, which showcases some of the best and most inspiring emerging and mid-career artists of our time.

Visit our online store and enjoy Beautiful Bizarre Magazine Issue 52.