2026 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize: MPB Photography Award Winners Announced!
“MPB is proud to partner with Beautiful Bizarre and sponsor the 2026 MPB Photography Award category. From providing a better way to switch up your setup to celebrating visual storytellers, we’re thrilled to support photographers of all experience levels creating great work. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone who submitted work to this year’s MPB Photography Award!” ~ Maggie Hinton, MPB
Thank you & Acknowledgements
Once again, we would like to thank all of the artists that entered and shared their work and their artistic passion with us. It was such a pleasure to immerse ourselves in the work of so many creatives, working across varied mediums and styles, and reading their stories.
Beautiful Bizarre Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Danijela Krha Purssey has the pleasure of curating each issue of the magazine and our exhibitions. The Art Prize entries will continue to give her a plethora of new ideas and choices to pursue in future. So thank you again for your interest in the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize, we very much hope to see how your work has grown and developed in next year’s Prize.
We would also like to sincerely thank the 2026 Jury Panel, particularly the Emerging Artist category Judge Franz Szony for giving his time and expertise to the panel. Additionally, we warmly thank the other artist Judges: Brad Kunkle (Painting juror), Ed Binkley (Drawing juror), Bastien Lecouffe Deharme (Digital Art juror), Matthias Verginer (Sculpture juror), along with Co-Founder of IX Arts Patrick Wilshire (Imaginative Realism juror), Owner of Quirky Fox Gallery Vicki Fox (Emerging Artist Category Juror), April Carter, Curator at PoetsArtists and 33 Contemporary Gallery; and Co-owner & Director of Modern Eden Gallery, Kim Larson.
To our major sponsors: the team at MPB; Didi Menendez, Founder of 33PA and Gallery Director of 33 Contemporary Gallery, RAYMAR President & Creative Director, Emilie Dietrich; Joshua Zika, founder of INPRNT and Owner & Art Director of BearWolf Books, Catherine K. Gyllerstrom – our deepest gratitude for supporting this year’s Prize. It is through your support and generosity that the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize is able to acknowledge and uplift so many incredible artists and photographers from around the world.
As always, a huge thank you also to the Beautiful Bizarre team for their dedication and hard work on behalf of the prize and winners all-year round.
Our sincere thanks to this year’s MPB Photography Award sponsors. It is through their support and generosity that the Photography Award Winners will be able to advance their creative practice, and receive the recognition they deserve.
MPB Photography Award
The MPB Photography Award 1st prize winner will receive:
- $3,000 USD cash generously donated by MPB. Founded in 2011, MPB is the leading reseller of used digital cameras and lenses in the U.S. MPB changes the game by giving you the best prices and the most convenient way to buy, sell and trade used camera gear. With a circular business model, MPB extends the life and creative potential of camera gear by recirculating over half a million cameras and lenses a year.
- 20×30 Epic Print + $250 Lab Credit (worth USD$672) by Bay Photo, the trusted partner for Photographers, Artists and Creatives since 1976. The Epic Print includes optional Frame and choice of display options.
- FocusPoint™ 30L RollTop backpack, generously donated by Think Tank. Founded in 2005 out of a desire to help photographers, Think Tank designs and creates sophisticated travel gear for the world’s venturing observers.
- USD$250 worth of printing credit on C-Type Papers, generously donated by Spectrum. Established for nearly three decades, Spectrum is an imaging lab specialising in high quality fine art and photographic printing, mounting and exhibition services working with professional photographers and artists, art galleries, and museums the world over. Please note that prints will need to be 750mm or under on the shortest side, and shipping outside of the UK is not included. Any duties incurred are to be covered by the recipient. Credit applies to Studio printing only and must be used within one year of receipt.
- 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.
- 3 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 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.
- A year’s worth of inspiration – a print subscription to Beautiful Bizarre Magazine.
2nd prize winner will receive:
- $1,000 USD generously donated by MPB. Founded in 2011, MPB is the leading reseller of used digital cameras and lenses in the U.S. MPB changes the game by giving you the best prices and the most convenient way to buy, sell and trade used camera gear. With a circular business model, MPB extends the life and creative potential of camera gear by recirculating over half a million cameras and lenses a year.
- 16×24 Epic Print + $200 Lab Credit (worth USD$532) by Bay Photo, the trusted partner for Photographers, Artists and Creatives since 1976. The Epic Print includes optional Frame and choice of display options.
- 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.
- 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 Magazine 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 generously donated by MPB. Founded in 2011, MPB is the leading reseller of used digital cameras and lenses in the U.S. MPB changes the game by giving you the best prices and the most convenient way to buy, sell and trade used camera gear. With a circular business model, MPB extends the life and creative potential of camera gear by recirculating over half a million cameras and lenses a year.
- 12×18 Epic Print + $150 Lab Credit (worth USD$389) by Bay Photo, the trusted partner for Photographers, Artists and Creatives since 1976. The Epic Print includes optional Frame and choice of display options.
- 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.
- 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 Magazine 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.
Congratulations to the 2026 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize MPB Photography Award Winners: Samantha Everton, Judith Nangala Crispin, and Laura Tait!
3rd Prize Winner
Samantha Everton
Currently resides: Australia
“Suite of Desire” (Digital photography: 1/160 @ F11 – 35mm Lense – ISO400 – Sony ILCE 7RM3). Cake design: Bakey Bakes.
Samantha Everton is a fine art photo-artist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her photographs are endowed with curiosity, placing female subjects in theatrical scenes with carefully curated stages, built sets and handmade props full of colour with elements of whimsy. Samantha Everton’s tightly choreographed photographs create visual narratives that have profound cross-cultural, sociological and psychological implications. The artist’s vivid style, described as ‘magic realism’, has a cinematic and surreal quality that pushes her subjects further and further from reality. They inhabit an uncanny world that is at once familiar and foreign, real and symbolic, and it feels as though our forgotten dreams have been projected into the picture plain. The unerring integrity of Everton’s photographic processes and her masterful technical ability have been internationally acclaimed.
“Suite of Desire”: Suite of Desire is created through a staged, surreal tableaux, a 13 year old navigates a familiar domestic interior, overwhelmed by spectacle – bejewelled foods, cult toys, oversized insects, and fantastical animals inhabit domestic spaces like unwelcome inheritances. The image presents a world saturated with objects: glittering, ornamental, and irresistibly abundant. Cakes lusciously melt, jewels encrust everyday items, & playful icons of childhood swell to monstrous scale. The child becomes both witness and participant, embodying the perspective of a generation within a culture of relentless consumption. We ask what it means to inherit such a world – one where beauty, desire, and excess blur together – and quietly question what remains when accumulation becomes our dominant legacy.
2nd Prize Winner
Judith Nangala Crispin
Currently resides: Australia
“Off the South Coast, where Christmas tourist traffic threads the Kings Highway, and stops for no reason, not for bird or fallen roo-the ocean gathers up Brendan, at the edge of water, remakes his shattered hind leg and broken tail, his heard, the shock of it all, his mother lost in the night scrub and the wall of lights that bore down. And the morning will lift him up like mountains.” (Cameraless work made in a geodesic dome, Lumachrome Glass Print, Chemigram, Drawing. Roadkilled Eastern Grey Joey, sand, seeds, Vegemite, charcoal, graphite, colour pencils, darkroom chemistry and ink on fibre paper. Exposed 36 hours in a perspex box, hand annotated under red light, re-exposed 10 hours)
Judith Nangala Crispin is an award-winning poet and photographic artist of mixed descent, living on unceded Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country, and a member of FNAWN (First Nations Australia Writers Network). Judith holds a Ph.D in music and a Doctor of Arts in Visual Art and Poetry. She’s published a poetry collections‘The Myrrh-Bearers’ , and two books of poetry and photographic images ‘The Lumen Seed’ and ‘The Dingo’s Noctuary’. Recent prizes include the 2026 Marion Halligan Award, 2020 Blake Prize for Poetry and the 2023 Sunshine Coast Art Prize.
“Off the South Coast, where Christmas tourist traffic threads the Kings Highway, and stops for no reason, not for bird or fallen roo-the ocean gathers up Brendan, at the edge of water, remakes his shattered hind leg and broken tail, his heard, the shock of it all, his mother lost in the night scrub and the wall of lights that bore down. And the morning will lift him up like mountains.”: These cameraless photographic works are the result of genuine collaboration with the landscape. They are literally constructed from light, earth and flesh. I have largely invented this process, which involves arranging blood, clay, sticks, leaves, seeds, resin, ochres, etc., with large or small cadavers, on light-sensitised paper. Exposed 24 to 36 hours, while the sun arches east to west, fibre papers produce surprising arrays of colour. This amalgam of sun printing and chemigram is further augmented by layering cliche-verre plates, coated with resists of wax or paint, scratched with wire to create lines. During the period of exposure I liberally draw on the prints using whatever is at hand, including blood and decomposition chemistry, photochemicals and ordinary ink/paint.
1st Prize Winner
Laura Tait
Currently resides: New Zealand
“Blackberries and Pears” (Digital photography: Canon R5/Canon 100mm)
Laura Tait is a New Zealand-based fine art photographer whose work focuses on contemporary botanical still life. By cultivating, arranging, and photographing flowers grown in her own garden, she maintains complete creative control throughout the process. Influenced by the Dutch Masters, her photographs explore the enduring relevance of the still life tradition within contemporary photographic practice.
“Blackberries and Pears”: There is something deeply nostalgic about foraging for blackberries, the way they stain fingertips, the quiet ritual of gathering them into baskets. Blackberries and Pears celebrates the abundance of high summer: golden pears, David Austin roses grown in my garden, and the warm glow of sunflowers. The work begins in the garden, created as both sanctuary and studio, where fragrant flowers evoke nostalgia and awaken memory while providing a haven for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. Inspired by the Dutch Masters and reimagined through a contemporary lens, the image explores our connection to nature, the changing seasons, and the enduring sense of belonging found in the simple act of gathering.
The 2026 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize is proudly sponsored by:
PLATINUM SPONSORS
GOLD SPONSORS
SILVER SPONSORS
BRONZE SPONSORS
MEDIA PARTNERS
ACADEMIC PARTNERS
.
