2nd Prize RAYMAR Painting Award

Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize 2026

Roos van der Vliet

Title:

“Hidden Messages” 

Medium & Dimensions:

Acrylics on canvas, 60 x 33cm

About the Artist

Roos van der Vliet (b. 1985) is a visual artist based in Duiven, The Netherlands. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2009 and has since developed a practice rooted in technical precision, observation, and a fascination with the stories carried beneath the surface of ordinary life. Working in a highly realistic style, Roos creates paintings that merge portraiture with symbolic and often dreamlike elements. Hair, animals, and other recurring motifs become vessels for themes of memory, intuition, connection, and transformation. Rather than illustrating fixed narratives, her work invites viewers into a space where personal experience and collective symbolism intersect. Roos has exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States.

“Hidden Messages”: Hidden Messages portrays my mother at a time of profound grief. Entwined in a veil of hair, she appears both fragile and resilient. A figure suspended between inner and outer worlds. The owls emerged after an unexpected moment during our photoshoot, becoming symbols of listening, intuition, and messages that may exist just beyond language. The painting explores how love and loss reshape our perception, and how we continue searching for connection even when silence seems absolute.