Grand Prize Winners

Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2025

Xavier Escala & Nina Murashkina

Title:

“Goddess”

Medium & Dimensions:

Wood, ceramic, gold, brass, 87 x 92 x 44 cm

About the Artist

Xavier Escala and Nina Murashkina form a creative duo whose work unites sculpture and painting. Nina Murashkina (1985, Donetsk, Ukraine) trained in graphic design at Donetsk, then studied monumental painting at Kharkiv Academy, scenography at Kyiv and painting at Kraków’s Jan Matejko Academy. Her taut, symbolic painting are often populated by goddess‑like alter-egos and flora, kitsch, symbolic imagery drawn from classical, naive, and magical‑symbolist sources. In 2023 she won the A‑FAD Award for Best Design of the Year in Barcelona for “Still Waters Run Deep”. Xavier Escala, (1975, Sant Cugat Sesgarrigues, Spain), studied sculpture at Santa Isabel de Hungría and Carrara academies and trained with sculptor Aron Demetz. A laureate of the National Sculpture Prize “Excelentísima Duquesa de Alba,” he works in wood, stone and ceramics. Xavier Escala and Nina Murashkina began collaborating as a married couple around 2017, blending Murashkina’s vibrant, symbolic canvases and installations with Escala’s serene, contemplative sculptures. Their duo exhibitions include “Woman and Man” (Mironova Gallery, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2021), Dreamers (Test Gallery, Barcelona, 2023), “NAXOS” Unlimited Art Gallery, Nice, France 2024 and Water Drops on Burning Rocks (Mriya Gallery, New York, 2024), where their work evoked the interplay of feminine and masculine energies.

“Goddess” (2025) by Xavier Escala and Nina Murashkina re-imagines the medieval shrine Madonna through a contemporary feminist lens. This new work, part of a series started in 2018, explores the divine within the human – a woman who becomes a vessel of feminine power. Symbolic details such as the lunar crown and feline figures reference ancient goddesses like Hathor and Cybele. It also responds to a history in which female icons were altered or erased, affirming the equal spiritual authority of women and men.