Honourable Mention

Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2025

Genevieve May

Title:

“Shine On”

Medium & Dimensions:

Oil painting on RAYMAR panel, 12 x 9 in

About the Artist

Genevieve May is celebrated for her distinctive fusion of typography and fantastical realism. Her work often integrates elements of fashion, music and calligraphic poetry, creating a dynamic interplay between identity and visual expression. Raised in a renovated tobacco barn in a rural town outside of Northampton, Massachusetts, Genevieve May was born the daughter of accomplished artists and authors, Dennis Nolan and Lauren Mills. Genevieve remembers many formative trips to museums, art classes, and gallery openings. As a child she studied classical drawing, calligraphy and painting with her parents and later studied figure drawing and sculpting at Lyme Academy, all before the age of fifteen. Upon entering high school she took credited college courses in egg tempera painting and in addition, studied watercolor and fresco painting with her parents in Europe. Later, Genevieve studied color theory and cadaver life drawing at Stamford University. Here she was able to practice the old renaissance tradition of dissecting human bodies in order to improve figurative drawing skills. She attributes her knowledge and deep understanding of the human form to this intensive.Once she felt that she had grasped the techniques her education provided, she summoned her art forms and created her own methods of self expression and story telling. Genevieve May currently creates out of her studio New York City and exhibits her work world wide.

“Shine On”: This piece is a love letter, a celebration for the moment a person feels seen. Has someones love ever made you feel brighter than you saw yourself before? Have you ever felt that love itself makes you more powerful or beautiful and preferred yourself in the way others see you rather than the way you see yourself? Maybe this is why we seek love so often and are broken when it’s gone.