Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2025: Victoria Olt Gallery Drawing Award Finalists Announced

This year we split the previous Traditional Art Award into two independent categories: Drawing and Painting. And what a first year it has been! The Victoria Olt Gallery Drawing Award received an impressive number of entries, all demonstrating remarkable skill and artistic vision.

Our thanks again to this year’s Jury Panel – including esteemed Arts Champions Victoria Olt of Victoria Olt Gallery and Drawing artist Annie Murphy Robinson who have been going through the entries and making the incredibly difficult decisions. The overall quality of entries was exceptional; we are deeply honoured by our community’s interest in the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize.

We have enjoyed drawings made with: graphite, pencil, pen, ink, charcoal, alcohol ink, pastels, markers, crayons and Scratchboard.

The Prizes

Victoria Olt Gallery Drawing Award

The Victoria Olt Gallery Drawing Award 1st prize winner will receive:

• $3,000 USD cash, generously donated by Victoria Olt Gallery, as well as the opportunity to exhibit at the gallery in 2026 (details TBC with the gallery). Situated in Tallinn City Center in Estonia, Victoria Olt Gallery brings more lively and inspiring art to public spaces and Estonian homes, from local and international artists.
• A beautiful, specially commissioned glass art award trophy.
• The opportunity to exhibit in the prestigious Beautiful Bizarre Magazine exhibition at Haven Gallery in Northport, NY, USA, alongside 70+ 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 published in the December 2025 issue of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine.
• Exclusive in-depth interview published on the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize andBeautiful 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 cash, generously donated by 3dtotal, an industry-leading art-book publisher. Renowned for creating high-quality, inspirational, and practical art books and tutorial books, 3dtotal works with some of the world’s best artists.
• The opportunity to exhibit at Victoria Olt Gallery in 2026 (details TBC with the gallery). Situated in Tallinn City Center in Estonia, Victoria Olt Gallery brings more lively and inspiring art to public spaces and Estonian homes, from local and international artists.  
• The opportunity to exhibit in the prestigious Beautiful Bizarre Magazine exhibition at Haven Gallery in Northport, NY, USA, alongside 70+ 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 cash, generously donated by 3dtotal, an industry-leading art-book publisher, and Haven Gallery in Northport, New York, USA.
• The opportunity to exhibit at Victoria Olt Gallery in 2026 (details TBC with the gallery). Situated in Tallinn City Center in Estonia, Victoria Olt Gallery brings more lively and inspiring art to public spaces and Estonian homes, from local and international artists.  
• The opportunity to exhibit in the prestigious Beautiful Bizarre Magazine exhibition at Haven Gallery in Northport, NY, USA, alongside 70+ 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 ‘Reverie’ exhibition at Haven Gallery in New York, United States later this year, alongside 70+ of the world’s best contemporary representational artists! ‘Reverie’ is an international group exhibition curated by: Beautiful Bizarre Magazine.

‘Reverie’ explores themes of a state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts; a daydream

From the 175 Finalists across all Award categories the Jury Panel will select the Grand Prize Award Winner.

The Grand Prize Award Winner of the 2025 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize will receive:

• $10,000 USD cash, donated by our Platinum sponsors Catherine K. Gyllerstrom, MPB, RAYMAR, Yasha Young Projects, Victoria Olt Gallery, and Prof. Dr. Ulrich Seibert.
• A beautiful, specially commissioned glass art award trophy.
• The opportunity to exhibit in the prestigious Beautiful Bizarre Magazine exhibition at Haven Gallery in Northport, NY, USA, alongside 70+ 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 2025 issue.
• Winning artwork printed in the December 2025 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.

People’s Choice Award

The People’s Choice Award Winner will be selected by popular vote from the 175 Finalists. The People’s Choice Award Winner will receive $1,000 USD cash, generously donated by Co-Founders of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine; and Deco Pro (Gen2) MW generously donated by XPPen.

Voting will open on 22 August [AEDT, Australian Eastern Daylight Time]. To ensure you don’t miss your chance to vote, please join our email mailing list here.

Additionally, the 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, plus 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, each sponsor will choose one outstanding work from their award category to receive an Honourable Mention. Stay tuned to learn more!

The RAYMAR Painting Award Finalists will be announced later this week. See the Catherine K Gyllerstrom Emerging Artist Award finalists here, Yasha Young Projects Sculpture Award finalists here, MPB Photography Award finalists here, and the Digital Art Award finalists here.

So without further ado we are proud to announce the Victoria Olt Gallery Drawing Award Finalists of the 2025 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize…

Victoria Olt Gallery Drawing Award Finalists

2025 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize

I wanted to talk about this crazy life-rhythm we have to keep up to, imposed by someone who’s not ourselves. We run like hell, way beyond our physical and mental capacities, to serve who-knows-who-or-what, while we should sit and listen to our needs, our bodies, our souls. This piece is an invitation, where it’s possible, to slow down and remember what really matters.

This piece was inspired by the prophesying sibyls of ancient myth. Their roles in myth from around the world speak to the recurrent human longing for a higher power to guide and enlighten us. I wanted to capture in my portrait the unreadable and faraway gaze of a sibyl listening for the voice of the gods.

Something Will Happen, Someday reflects on moments of dissociation, where I dream of fabricated events that allow me to “prove my worth” to the people around me. Although the piece was created to recognize this as a foolish and embarrassing habit, the drawing is saccharine in presentation, fully leaning into the daydreams. Her head is wrapped in stylized symbols, both universal and personal, that touch on unrealistic expectations and personal struggles with initiating connection.

Lighting and contrast play a huge role in creating realistic references for drawing. The way the light is cast gently on the subject’s back from the top left corner allowed me to capture the subtlety of the texture on her skin. It also highlighted the delicateness of the fabric draping off her shoulder. The goal was to capture a feeling and emotion without the subject’s face being visible. The end result gave off an incredibly vulnerable feel.

Numb I, speaks to a state of disconnect between emotional and physical states. The figures eyes are desensitised to the world around them as they perform autonomously, analogous to how many victims of abuse are expected to simply go on living, and internalise their experiences as though no trauma ever occurred. The same societal pressure to carry on is expressed in the figures puppet like pose and warped internal anatomy, reflecting a sense of lost autonomy in the face of one’s own response to manipulation. At the same time for many who have experienced abuse there is a freeing and transformative process in detaching themselves from their body, achieving a sense of ethereal beauty and relief in the face of decay and death.

Civis terae sp.4 is one in my “Cives terae” series. The series explores the human relationship with the natural world, questioning what it means to be a citizen of the Earth. Drawing on themes of ecology, belonging, and embodiment, the work reflects on environmental fragility and interdependence. It invites reflection on care, responsibility, and our place within a shared planetary system.

This drawing represents the fable of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I had an idea to do a Goldilocks themed work using origami bears and I also remembered that the original version of the Goldilocks tale featured an older woman before being changed to a young girl. At this point I decided to use my mother as a figure subject for Goldilocks. I often use fables and folklore as an inspiration for my work, and this time I combined it with a portrait of mom.

This drawing is part of a series exploring classic tropes of a cozy murder mystery. Many murder mysteries revolve around a small, close circle of suspects – friends, family, colleagues – and how those relationships unravel under investigation. A key trope in cozy mysteries is the presence of an amateur sleuth as the protagonist, who is typically a woman in a small town setting. At their core, murder mysteries are puzzles, allowing us to tap into problem-solving and our natural curiosity; but they also allow us to consider death in a safe, controlled environment. We are able to confront the darker aspects of human nature, but from a distance so there’s a certain catharsis in facing these themes without real-world consequences.

This drawing explores identity, balance, and transformation. An anthropomorphic figure – part human, part antelope – sits in meditation atop a rock. In one hand, it holds a broken stone mask, symbolising the shedding of false identites; in the other, a tree, representing growth and renewal. The antelope’s gaze toward the tree suggests a conscious turning toward life, while the scattered mask fragments below echo the quiet aftermath of personal unmasking.

“Metropolitan Man” explores the convergence of our infinite inner world and the physical Universe. Set on Sydney’s George Street, the distorted urban environment funnels toward a lone silhouette – the threshold between interior consciousness and external reality. Photo-realistic charcoal heightens contrasts between light and shadow, reflecting how human perception bends and reshapes the world from the inside out.

Deep is a figurative work depicting a friend’s struggle with depression. A lifelong battle with the illness took its toll on both relationships and family members. Her accounts of the episodes were of being twisted and dragged down to the bottom of the sea, as if boulders were pulling her deeper and deeper. Hence the title “Deep”.

The bee is an essential link in our survival and the evolution of our planet.

The black and white draw presents a scene full of atmosphere and emotion. It shows an old telephone booth with the sign “teléfono” (Spanish for “telephone”) at the top. Inside the booth, in the lower section, a young man is seated on the floor, leaning back against the wall. The young man has his face tilted slightly upward, with an expression that suggests exhaustion, melancholy, or introspection. He is wearing a thick sweater and appears to be alone, enclosed in a tight space that contrasts starkly with the surrounding darkness and emptiness. The booth is lit from within, creating a dramatic visual effect with strong contrasts between light and shadow. The mood evokes an intimate, nocturnal narrative – possibly of waiting, loneliness, or deep thought.

My name is Kanmi Olukanni and I am both a self-taught artist and an architect. I have always been one to focus on the finer details, whether it’s observing our built environment, or drawing portraits to capture emotions. My artwork is primarily created with charcoal, with the focus on faces and the human body. This art piece was inspired by the idea of inner self conflict. There is a ‘good’ you and a ‘bad’ you but ultimately, accepting the fact that all decisions made in life is down to yourself, expressing the notion of free will.

This piece was inspired by the late Susannah Kelly. I incorporate lighthouses into my work often, and the experience of meeting her is the closest I can come to why. I was in a dark place, suffering with both physical and mental illness when we met. I felt like my hard work had paid off because this beautiful, sweet person who I idolized thought that my work was worthy of hanging on her gallery walls. She embodied what I love about lighthouses – a guiding light for all those lost in the dark.

I make drawings on paper with simple materials.  Through scale and detail, the work strives for realism while disregarding any photographic weight of that word.  Beginning with the familiar construction of classical portraiture, I draw fictitious individuals. Characters that are as rooted in art history as they are nestled among the flora and fauna of the natural world.  This sense of interconnectedness to our surroundings, along with our past and present, seems so unfortunately out of step in the modern era. We hurtle forward, allowing technological advancements to disavow us of such notions. The discomfort of this inconsistency is the foundation for drawing something that celebrates inimitable, flawed and fleeting beauty.  The full ecstatic bloom of a Bearded Iris only lasts a few days, which isn’t truly so very different from our own time here.  I labor to depict every leaf and blade of grass with the same determination as the formal subject of all my work, because all of life endures the same cycle of flowering, faltering and finally fading away.

Ode to darkness, that everything embraces and holds. The night hours whisper about our untold truths, the ones we hide in the daylight. I am grateful to darkness for everything is created through it and in darkness pulses and lives. It is in its lap that all begins and ends, and our secrets unveil.

I created this piece during a time when I was feeling intensely overwhelmed. I used the work to process my struggles, infusing the image with loads of personal symbolism. It was an incredibly cathartic experience to transform my anxiety into something beautiful. Beauty with a dash of melancholy – my favourite combination!

One of a series of fantasies on creatures who might serve as explanations for subtle noises in very old houses at night.

Like a seed in the soil, she is at the beginning of her growth, slowly starting to rise, to awaken. Yet she still feels the weight of her fears – the black crow – pressing her down. She knows she is vulnerable, still able to be hurt, scratched, or bitten, but she is also brave and eager to grow.“ The Creator” is born when she realizes her fears and limits are self-imposed. When her belief in herself and her purpose becomes unshakable, she begins to take form, to materialize. With this new consciousness, she starts shaping her own reality, manifesting her desires. From this transformation, a bear’s face appears behind the crow – symbol of her strength. Finally, the bear devours the crow, showing that facing fear leads to liberation and power.

Under the Same Sun I highlights the challenges faced by people with albinism in Nigeria, where 1 in 5,000 are born with the condition. Despite being relatively common, they face discrimination, stigma, and health challenges. Inspired by my patient Queen, who overcame impaired vision and harmful superstitions to pursue education, I created a hyperrealistic charcoal and pastel portrait capturing her resilience. Alongside this artwork, I documented her story and provided her with skincare support.

Song of time drawing was inspired by the world’s oldest song, the Seikilos Epitaph. This ancient Greek melody dates back to the first century AD. Found engraved on a tombstone, it includes both musical notation and lyrics. The song’s message is timeless: it encourages living life to the fullest. Imagine hearing a tune played in lyre instrument that has echoed through centuries, connecting us to people from long ago. The melody is simple yet haunting, a reminder of our shared human experience, and symbol of timeless remembrance.

In Old Soul, a woman cradles a lush bouquet of native flora. Tucked among the blooms, a snake coils quietly – its presence a subtle disruption. This tension between beauty and danger speaks to the complexity of inheritance – the tender and the painful, both shaping who we become. The figure doesn’t flinch; her hands remain open. There is acceptance here – a quiet embrace of the past, and all that is carried forward.

Have you ever cried for so long that it feels like flowers could grow from your eyes? The idea for this work came while listening to Heavy Heart by You Am I, the title of the work is the line that was the spark.

This work symbolizes the perseverance of a woman struggling to rebuild herself and not give up. The absence of her right hand represents the loss of everything that gave meaning to her life.