The Dalí’s Existentialism Art Contest Online Exhibit

Adam Strange
Putin’s Razor
Digital Photomontage
London, Ontario, Canada
IG: strangeideasart

Zozobra is a Spanish word for distress. The Mexican philosopher Emilio Uranga has used the term to describe a specific form of existential anxiety related to uncertainty and ambiguity, following its usage by the poet Ramón López Velarde. The term has been used to describe the feelings of uncertainty and distress in the United States due to the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political events of the Trump presidency and 2020 U.S. presidential election (and now include Trump’s re-election in 2024). These feelings and reactions persist today across the world, where the level of anxiety is growing, as western leaders are increasingly undermining democracy and the rule of law and a global shift toward totalitarianism and dictatorships. This work reflects Trump’s fealty to Putin.

Addie Rodriguez
Morph
Photography
St. Petersburg, Florida, USA

I took this photograph using my iPhone 15Pro front camera as a self portrait during a particularly tumultuous period in 2024. Before taking the photo, I spent some time reflecting on my life and wanted the image to reflect a snapshot of change happening from within. Since taking the photo I regularly refer back to it when I am feeling stuck creatively or need a reminder that I can continue to make transformative progress in life.

Adeline Kovach
Polycephaly
Collage
Roswell, Georgia, USA
IG: suburbanlegendd

I’ve been fascinated by the concept of polycephaly, the condition of having more than one head, for many years now. I’ve always taken an interest in both biology and oddities, and how the two often interact. This piece is inspired by my love of natural-born oddities, folklore, and all things fantasy. I made this piece on paper, using a book of religious artwork and a coffee table book featuring art of unicorns throughout the years. I draw a lot of inspiration from the surrealist artists that came before me, and I think that influence can typically be seen in my work.

Adrian Sorin Sinescu
Twilight of the Idols
Digital
Deva, Romania

This work emerges from an imagined dialogue between Alberto Giacometti’s existential figures, Salvador Dalí’s oneiric landscapes, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols. The figure is not a character but a fragile presence: a body thinned to the limit, isolated in a vast and empty space, as if eroded by the loss of meaning rather than by time. Its verticality recalls Giacometti, yet it no longer suggests movement or will, only the persistence of being. The desert setting evokes Dalí’s unreal horizons, where reality and vision merge and the human form becomes apparition. The title refers to Nietzsche’s critique of absolutes: the idol is no longer divine or heroic, but a remnant of humanity after transcendence. The image meditates on the human condition after the “death of the gods”: solitary, exposed, reduced to pure visibility, fading slowly into an emptied world.

Aikaterini Koutentaki
Eye-Dol
Mixed Media Sculpture (Steel, Plaster, and Resin)
Attica, Greece
https://kutedaki.com/

“‘Eye-Dol’ was rooted in the artistic discourse of ‘Giacometti & Dalí: Through & Beyond Surrealism’.
While reflecting upon Dalí, I evoked a personal energy-healing experience in which I had envisioned myself as an ‘all-seeing eye’. This oneiric imagery led to the creation of a monochrome eye-egg with prominent lashes.
The subsequent stage involved the integration of Giacometti into the composition. The gold-bronze form, inspired by the Cycladic figurine, provided the primal simplicity and dynamism I had sought.
The synthesis of an oversized eye-egg with the elongated body functions as an allegorical bridge, allowing matter to illuminate the spirit and reason to reveal the soul.
The final work constitutes a ‘magical’ return to primordial forms, probing the human essence.
The title ‘Eye-Dol’ is a phonetic play on the word ‘Idol’; through the homophone ‘Eye/I’, it simultaneously reveals the Self, where personal pursuit becomes the vessel for the manifestation of the archetype.”

Alberto Chirinos
Starchild
Oil on Canvas
Tampa, Florida, USA

The glassy reflection (as an extension of the material being), brings together the religious undertone of the Sci-Fi scene.

Allen Hirsh
Windmill Melting in an Overheated World
Digital Art
Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA
IG: the_abstract_gardener

Using a photo of an antique windmill in the Netherlands and a massive mathematical painting program I have invented, I am sometimes able to generate images that symbolize civilization’s struggle to embrace renewable energy in the face of thje challenge of a rapidly heating world. I think Dali, too, perceived the attack of the technological upon the organic e.g. the melting clock on a dead tree in “The Persistence of Memory” or what appears to be a giant mosquito hovering over the car in Dali’s “Datsun 610 Wagon” ad. I my case, as a biological scientist, I am using my technological skill as a computer programmer and my knowledge of mathematics to both develop a unique art and, sometimes, with a certain irony, criticize technological civilization.

Allyssa Duffield
Existence Priced
Acrylic Paints
Saint Petersburg, Florida, USA
IG: allyssa_artistry

When deciding on what to paint for this contest, my mind immediately thought of a snail. So in response to that I made a snail the main focus. The snail finds itself wondering in an art gallery, without even trying it created an abstract scene. The artwork exists not because it was meant to, but because something continued forward without knowing why.

Amber Goerner
Inside and Out
Acrylic Paint on Canvas
Bradenton, Florida, USA
IG: ambercraftlady

This work is a representation of the battle between inside and outside. The person who is viewed to the world and the true self behind it. I based the portrait on myself as I battle chronic illness and struggle with living life while maintaining my health. This existential feeling of inside and out is experienced by many but can only be truly known to the person who is actively experiencing it as our relationship between our true selves and the world we interact with is fully unique. Take how we see color, due to the way our eyes take in light and interpret the colors it is likely that we all interpret color differently. What I see as pink could be how someone else sees purple or orange. Because we can never fully know how someone else experiences color it is impossible to prove what they see. This uncertainty inspires me to use bright and abnormal colors to create realistic imagery. This piece speaks to the scientist and artist I am and how I both hide and show myself in the world.

Amy Neice
Weight of Becoming
Acrylic on Canvas
Wimauma, Florida, USA
IG: Alee Okan

Weight of Becoming presents an abstract female form suspended in inward awareness. Through layered color and unresolved texture, the figure exists without fixed identity, emphasizing presence, choice, and becoming. Meaning remains open, formed through the viewer’s own reflection rather than imposed narrative.

Andrea Gray
Where Do You See Yourself? (Phase 2)
Assemblage (Mirror, Wood, Black Paint, Black Paper, Brass Tacks)
Lynbrook, New York, USA

The vision of this object originally appeared to me in a dream. I woke up the morning of 3/29/25 so startled and shaken by it, not only because it happened, but because I was implored to recreate it. It is also the first time in my life I can ever recall dreaming in stark black and white. Both sleeping and awake, I did not know where or how I would obtain the specific mirror—later that same day, on an unplanned outing, the mirror appeared to me.

The theme and object itself defy the morals and traditions of my upbringing, but it had to be. For these reasons, it also could not be allowed to remain, and so I dismantled it within five minutes after taking the final photos.

This work is part of a series I have been developing over the past decade, focusing on life, living, and the measurement of time—until I was inadvertently forced to face my own mortality last year. Now, and especially with this object, my art focuses on what comes next.

Ava Powers
Strange Desires
Charcoal on Paper
Dunedin, Florida, USA
IG: avap0wers

This artwork is a visual depiction of the creature top owned by Houdini the magician’s assistant worn on a vague self-portrait. Named after the online collector of the creature top, the drawing reflects an existential state in which desire cannot lead to action, but to self-awareness, vulnerability, and isolation. In other words, I must live with wanting.

Barbara Beeman
Lady in Red
Photography
New Jersey, USA
IG: msbarbarabeeman

The lady’s coat was flying as she was running for the train when I took this photo, which reminded me of the great Dali. I photographed through old glass to create the descriptive lines and added more color to the image to make it pop. I wished that Dali could see it.

Maria Barbos
Between
Acrylic on Canvas
Ploiești, Prahova, Romania
IG: ana_maria_barbos

This work starts from the idea of existence as a state of precarious balance. The solitary presence is not presented as a symbol, but as an experience: being suspended between stability and disappearance. The figure is small and vulnerable, almost absorbed by the surrounding space. Emptiness does not function as a background, but as pressure — a space that does not protect, but exposes.

The inspiration comes from existentialist concerns with the fragility of being and from Giacometti’s way of reducing the body to its essence, allowing space to become active. The work explores the tension between presence and absence, between remaining and vanishing, without narrative or dramatic gesture, but through silence and endurance.

Bellamy Sorba
Strait Jacket / Wedding Gown
1200 Plastic Shopping Bags
Bradenton, Florida, USA
IG: Bellamy.Sorba

There are things that lure through beauty, prestige, and through the need to have what everyone else has. We work at our jobs trading hours, then years of our lives for these things we don’t need, always thinking the next purchase will bring happiness, self-medicating in ways that are harmful to us as well as the environment.

Strait Jacket/Wedding Gown explores the point where the possessor becomes the possessed. This work uses plastic shopping bags to bring attention to the frivolous and harmful desires we refuse to let go and questions what it is we are really married to.

Bianca Georges
Raw Power
Pencil
Coplay, Pennsylvania, USA

I wanted to begin drawing self-portraits of myself. My early 20s have been a rollercoaster of self-discovery and finding out who I truly am. Looking through a mirror feels like a facade—it isn’t the version of you that you know.

I started to draw my face in its bare form. No hair, no embellishment, just truly my features. As I drew, it felt like I let myself go and began to capture the state I was in—the brain fog that gets illuminated outward to others in sometimes incoherent metaphors. The lightbulb idea came to mind and I represented the light coming out as my fog.

We are all running on energy, but some more than others. Potatoes provide a small enough voltage to light up a light bulb, so I went with it. This is a true self-portrait of my existential exhaustion. In your 20s you juggle not only yourself but expectation, school, family, relationships, and responsibilities. You run out of batteries in life and can only continue in low volts.

Bill Gallagher
Fear of Missing Out
Oil on Canvas
New Smyrna Beach, Florida, USA
IG: Bill_gallagher_artist

Fear of Missing Out is a painting about our current human condition; it’s about the constant clicks and likes, the hollow affirmations we seek, and the cost we pay. We are missing out on the world around us and trapping ourselves in a digital world—chasing pixels and missing the sky.

This man is me, you — all of us.

Brian Jacob
Robot Series
Cyanotype Photograph
St. Petersburg, Florida, USA

I made the Robot series of cyanotype photographs with a homemade camera, like a camera obscura, using low-tech 1800s photographic techniques.

Cora Van Vleet
Nest
Fabric Sculpture
Saint Petersburg, Florida, USA
IG: ninemusesarts

Nest is the second work in my fabric sculpture series, where I repurpose textiles into contemplative forms. Composed of many smaller elements woven together into a unified whole, Nest reflects interconnectedness—our dependence on one another and on the environment.

The work explores the tension between awareness and overwhelm: the existential paralysis that can arise when we confront the responsibility of caring for ourselves, our communities, and the planet within a modern, perfection-driven culture. The pressure to be entirely ethical, sustainable, or “perfect” can be debilitating, often discouraging action altogether.

Nest invites viewers to sit with these inflated, entangled feelings—each form representing countless small thoughts weaving in and out. Ultimately, the piece encourages meditation rather than paralysis: to acknowledge complexity, release the burden of perfection, and recognize that meaningful change begins not with flawlessness, but with action.

Denzel Omoefe Uwumarogie
How Does It Feel (Untitled)
Oil on Cotton Rag Paper,
29.7 x 42 cm
Salford, England
IG: dousmind

Painted during a time of quiet unravelling and remaking, this work uses an isolated interior and the nocturnal city beyond it as a measure of human presence in space. A solitary figure seen from behind functions as a signifier of solitude and the subconscious—at times solid, at times almost dissolving into shadow.

The composition places the viewer inside the café. Cropped tables, converging ceiling planes, and reflective tiles frame the scene and invite bodily inhabitation rather than passive looking. Outside, opposing blue and red cars mark a suspended bifurcation—a moment of choice.

Underpainting bursts through the surface; drips, scorings, and glowing tiles register time passing and the accumulation of small acts. The painting stages an existential pause—a confrontation with the shadow where identity is provisional and becoming.

Dizlarka (Leah Larisa Bunshaft)
Uncontained
Oil with Thread on Canvas
Barcelona, Spain
IG: dizlarka_art

Uncontained is one of the triptych (Her Place) from the series My Borders. Here the girl no longer fits into the world built for her. The frame tightens like a cage, her body pressing against its limits as if seeking escape.

Masks lie scattered beneath her feet—traces of roles once played: mother, lover, daughter, worker. The dream of a safe home fades like a dotted tattoo on her skin. The bird of her innocent soul is long gone, its bones now turned into an earring.

She stands on the threshold of liberation, ready to shed the last mask and finally breathe freely.

Domenico Boffa
A Volte Dimentico di Restare Umano
Oil on Canvas
Guastalla, Reggio Emilia, Italy
IG: domenico.boffa

The artist employs intense chromatic contrasts and surreal juxtapositions to question the boundaries between everyday objects and symbolic meaning. The freezer, a symbol of preservation, becomes a metaphor for emotional stasis, while scattered fragments evoke fragility and discontinuity.

Domenico Boffa’s artistic research investigates the intersection between material culture and conceptual reflection. His works combine painterly gesture with sculptural thinking, creating visual environments that challenge perception and stimulate interpretation.

This painting does not tell a story; instead, it constructs a field of tension—between order and entropy, memory and matter.

Dr. Santosh Kumar Jha
The Kumbh
Pen & Ink on Paper
Rajasthan, India
IG: jhadarbhanga

This work is inspired by the creative dialogue between Salvador Dalí and Alberto Giacometti and explores the shifting, phenomenological experience of form within a floral, encroaching environment. The central pale vessels represent isolated figures, echoing Giacometti’s preoccupation with the figure in space.

Half-submerged in a dense floral field, these forms embody existential vulnerability and austere, unsettling landscapes often observed in Dalí’s work. The upper register features a rhythmic, dotted void, mirroring the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s observation about Giacometti’s dissolution into pure visibility—more illusion than physical presence.

A repetitive border of eye-like botanical motifs evokes existentialist concerns with individuality and responsibility. The objects exist only through the weight of being perceived, challenging our perception of reality through silent solidarity.

Elcin Marasli Ball
My Grandmother’s Telephone (2026)
Acrylic Paint on Canvas
50 x 50 cm
Leiden, The Netherlands
IG: f2r_atolye_art

This painting explores existential themes through fragmented communication and fading memory. I reassemble rotary telephones into an unstable, face-like form, evoking the tension between presence and absence. The colors are drawn from my attempt to recall the exact hue of my grandmother’s phone – an image that feels familiar yet never fully clear. The eyes are intentionally ambiguous, referencing my grandmother’s green-hazel gaze, rare within my family of brown eyes. Inspired by Salvador Dalí’s telephone imagery, the work portrays communication not as clarity, but as an existential burden shaped by fading memory and the emotional ambiguity it brings.
This is a brand-new piece created specifically for this open call.

Elena Thulin
5 o’clock
Oil on Canvas Panel
50 x 40 cm
Seengen, Switzerland
IG: Eli_fun_art

The painting reflects existentialism by showing humans enclosed in a transparent structure (glass box or cage), engaged in a calm social ritual while surrounded by an indifferent, absurd world. The kangaroos—oversized and floating—suggest the irrational nature of existence, while the barren landscape emphasizes meaninglessness beyond human constructs. The glass enclosure represents self-made systems of comfort and order. The small dog, sitting outside and observing, symbolizes awareness without illusion. Overall, the work explores how humans create meaning in a world that does not provide it.

Emily Carrum
An Interior of Time
Graphite on Paper
Burlingame, California, USA

This work explores the human impulse to construct systems: architecture, music, ritual, timekeeping. All in an effort to stabilize an inherently uncertain existence. The central structure functions as both sanctuary and machine, offering pathways, direction, and rhythm, yet withholding resolution.

The staircase suggests perpetual ascent without arrival; the pendulum marks time without progress; the musical notation implies urgency imposed by an unseen authority. Organic forms encroach upon rigid geometry, emphasizing entropy and the fragility of imposed order.

Rather than depicting the absurd through spectacle, the piece confronts it through restraint. I invite the viewer into a space where meaning feels imminent but remains unreachable. In this tension, perception of reality shifts: structure becomes suspect, direction becomes ambiguous, and the search itself becomes the subject.

Emma Benitez
Ruin and Rebirth
Acrylic on Canvas
New Smyrna Beach, Florida
IG: Emma.k.Benitez

This work began as a meditation on divinity and humanity. The rose window, often used to represent the divine, became a personal altar, a space where experience and intuition can play with form. The process was unplanned and unfolded through impulse, presence, and the churn of the human condition. The surface holds both order and turbulence, reflecting the peace and discomfort within me. Circles and arches become a refuge for the mind. Earthbound colors and marks come from being alive. The piece rests between fracture and renewal, where heartbreak, loss, and betrayal can be seen as devastation or the beginning of something beautiful and true. The work is ultimately about perception. It can be viewed as destruction or transformation, ruin or rebirth. It considers how cracks fill with meaning and how the imperfect is what makes the architecture of self more compelling. It carries the divine and the human at once and leaves the viewer to decide which one they see.

Ergi Vardar
Modes of Being
Oil on Canvas
Istanbul, Turkey
IG: ergi.vardar

Since 2019, my sketchbooks have served as a vessel for immediate experience. This selection, born from a stream of consciousness, reflects the raw and unfiltered nature of being—paralleling the Surrealist practice of automatism. In these drawings, I explore how individuals confront their own existence. Through their guarded body language and physical distancing, the figures manifest the isolation and absurdity inherent in the human condition, offering a visual inquiry into our various modes of existence

Evelyn Nitzberg
AEON
Oil on Canvas
Springvale Village, Maine
IG: evelynnitzberg

I am swept along on the tides of illusion. The aging of all things: change is reality. The older I become, the more I obsess about the idea that at any unbeknownst moment, I will no longer exist. For now, my imagination is my playground: I meditate in that realm. That humans have the ability to think, to feel, to see, to touch, to create… are Miracles. Everything is Miraculous: birth, that anything becomes, awareness of change… and the end of life. Our creative works live on.

Fernando Ramos
A Push and Pull
Analog Collage on Paper
Miami, Florida, USA
IG: fernando_ramos_art

A super moon dominates the background, rising above immense tidal waves that cascade into fractured mountains. At the mountain’s peak stands a solitary figure, dwarfed by the vast celestial forces surrounding them. Below, a valley is scattered with fragile ceramic jars and rusted metal containers resting quietly in the foreground. The dramatic scale of the landscape emphasizes the pull of the lunar tides, evoking themes of the sublime and introspection. Through its layered imagery and subtle details, the scene reflects on humanity’s precarious position between the forces of nature and the limits of personal agency.

Füsun Venceli
Baba
Acrylic on Canvas
50 x 70 in
İzmir, Turkey
IG: vence.art

migration, change

Gabriella Babini
Je suis tellement Perdue
Permanent Markers on Canvas
Lazio, Italy
IG: itsteodosia

This self-portrait was inspired by the moment I moved out of my family home and began university. While questioning my choices and identity felt natural to me, the act of questioning itself was interpreted by others as being “lost.”
That label gradually shaped my perception of myself, and the feeling of being lost emerged only after it had been imposed from the outside.
The work reflects the tension between self-reflection and the way external judgments can redefine how we experience ourselves.

Gaya Lastovjak
Selectivity
Mixed Media (Paper-Mâché, Canvas, Oil)
Kraków, Poland
IG: gayalastovjak

Crafted in mixed media (oil and paper-mâché relief), “Selectivity” offers an existential reflection on the human condition. The central black square symbolizes dogmatism, while the hands form a wall that isolates the individual within their own rigid perceptions. While the raw form echoes the starkness of Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures, the work serves as a personal dialogue with the themes of isolation and the crisis of identity often explored by Salvador Dalí. The haptic texture embodies Jean-Paul Sartre’s principle that “existence precedes essence,” inviting the viewer to confront the tension between physical presence and the existential void.

Guy Hivroni
Formal Silence
Clay, Wheel Throwing, and Hand-Sculpting
Jerusalem, Israel
IG: ronitandguy

Formal Silence presents a ceramic garment without a body, standing upright as a quiet remnant of human presence. Shaped through wheel throwing and hand sculpting, the work holds an empty interior where the wearer once existed.

The absence becomes the subject. The sculpture reflects on identity stripped of action, authority emptied of its figure, and existence defined by what remains rather than what is shown.

In dialogue with existential thought, the work invites contemplation of presence through withdrawal, and of meaning found not in expression, but in restraint.

Hansa Sethi
My Bad
Acrylic on Canvas
Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh
IG: chaoticdreamervoid

“My Bad” examines the psychological collapse that occurs when injury and blame are twisted together. It captures a form of emotional manipulation where the victim is conditioned to believe the damage is their own doing. This inversion creates a heavy, internal gravity: a weight of guilt, doubt, and forced accountability that sinks quietly beneath the surface. Through its tension and intensity, the work reveals how blame becomes a burden carried alone, even when the harm was never one’s own to own.

Heather Price
Euphemism / Ordeal
Acrylic Mixed Media
Tampa, Florida, USA

This painting was created using no paintbrushes, but only materials found in a wedding: a bouquet, rice, lace, a ring pillow, pearls. The colors used are those the person this painting is about is colorblind to, as a metaphor for the invisible marks we leave on others.

Hou Guo
The Roar of the Self
Acrylics, Gold Leaf
Anyang City, China
IG: hoho_kuo

“In mythology, dragons often serve as silent enforcers, tasked with controlling clouds and rain. After a millennium of silence, its “”roar”” becomes an earth-shaking rebellion against its divine fate—a culmination of silence and the manifestation of will. It is no longer a symbol bound by the cycle of heavenly law but a being with a powerful sense of self.
The posture of raising its head toward the sky forms a metaphor of immense tension: a protest of chaos against order, a question of time against eternity, a silent salute of a lonely will crowning itself in an unresponsive universe. It shakes not only the clouds but also established laws and the boundaries of perception. It attempts to chisel a gap in the cyclical loop of time, allowing something unpredictable and “”new”” to enter—thus erupting into a singular point of linear history.
Within this long roar echoes the shared pain and nobility of all life seeking to transcend its own limitations. It reminds us that the deepest cage may be”

Huan Zhao
Soul Swimmer
Acrylic on Paper
Ontario, Canda
IG: tomaiilla

“Soul Swimmer presents a solitary figure suspended in an unstable, abstract sea, held in continuous motion without a fixed destination. Its form resists clear classification, appearing caught between familiarity and otherness.

The swimmer’s body is fragile and exposed, shaped by currents beyond its control. Its movement is not heroic but necessary, echoing the existential condition of navigating a world that offers no fixed meaning or stable ground. The imagined sea becomes a psychological and phenomenological space—one that mirrors displacement, solitude, and the quiet tension between survival and surrender. Through abstraction and transformation, Soul Swimmer reflects on existence as a continuous act of becoming, defined not by arrival, but by the act of moving forward within uncertainty.”

Jay Titus
You Win Some
Mixed – Street Signs, Trophy Toppers, Paint
Clearwater, Florida, USA
IG: JayTitusArt

The subject represented by paint is The Winged Victory of Samothrace, a Hellenistic sculpture of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike. The large chevron street sign is pointing down implying the letter V as in victory. Additional found objects are 29 trophy toppers from various sports. The tittle “ You Win Some” also was meant to get the viewer to infer the fact you lose some. Example: when it comes to entering art shows – you win some you lose some. This ties into existentialism through the philosophy’s emphasis on accepting the inherent randomness and lack of predefined meaning in life. It is an individual’s responsibility to create their own meaning in the face of unpredictable reality.

Jean-Philippe Paumier
Moby Dick
Marble, Tin & Plastic
Amsterdam, Netherlands
IG: jp_paumier

‘Moby Dick’ is a small sculpture I made based on the principle of ‘objet trouvé’. The different elements are intuitively combined and the result could be seen as a philosophical tale about the human existential quest. The title ‘Moby Dick’ obviously refers to Melville’s masterpiece, and more specifically to Captain Ahab’s obsessive aspiration to achieve his goal. In my work, the toy-whale comes out of a whiskey hip flask and suggests the absurdity of a drunkenness dream, a deformed vision or another level of consciousness. The inability of drawing clear conclusions is maybe the key-concept of this existential artwork, reflecting and speculating on our human condition.

Jerome Patryjak
Murphy, Mercer, Molloy, Moran and Malone
Ink
Laurium, Michigan

In reading the work of Samuel Beckett I found that there were several interchangeable characters, with similar names, similar fates, and darkly irredeemable lives. Somehow all connected and yet all alone, I saw them as following living in confusion and disarray, and a lack of their personal focus. While each was a lone person, and very alone in their thoughts and inner lives, they seemed to be different facets, or as I saw it, different faces, of one sole soul.

JIANYI WANG
Ant and bOY
Oil Painting
Montreal, Québec, Canada
IG: suli.vano

This oil painting is inspired by the 2003 Korean film Oldboy, directed by Park Chan-wook. In the film, a character explains that when people become extremely lonely, they begin to see ants. This idea influences the work, which focuses on loneliness in young men. The image of ants is used as a sign of isolation and mental strain, and how loneliness can slowly take over the mind.

Juliana Ulloa
Between Becoming and Disappearing
Chlorophyll Printing
Port Orange, Florida
IG: fotosporjuli

“This work explores impermanence and the human search for meaning. The figure is a universal presence, reaching toward something just beyond view, suspended between becoming and disappearing. The window suggests another self and a quiet form of escape, while the circular shapes represent internal thoughts and emotional weight. Together, they create a space where the body feels both present and dissolving.

Printed on a living leaf using a chlorophyll process, the image is temporary by nature. Light brings the figure into being and slowly erases her. As the leaf changes, the work changes with it, reflecting the fragile and fleeting nature of existence.

Nothing lasts forever, yet the act of reaching continues.”

Justine Langille
mirror dimension elk perishes, alone
Inks of Buckthorn, Charcoal, Barberry and Coffee on Paper
Langley, British Columbia, Canada
IG: @justinelangille

The limitations of lockdowns forced me to pause many plans for photography projects and motivated me to explore other place-based avenues for creating images.

I began foraging widely daily throughout our de-industrialised Guelph, Ontario (CANADA) neighbourhood for berries and charcoal to make natural pigments and ink with, as well as found paper to repurpose in my work.

In the resulting experimental series Ubiquitous Nightmare Balm (2021), I used the vivid pigments and upcycled paper I collected to mediate news and conspiracy theories my consciousness was inundated with daily.

A delusional projection from the disorder of my pandemic experience, the work submitted here imagines a once mighty elk succumbing to the ravages of an even more virulent COVID-19, on a planet identical to Earth found in the infinitude of the hypothetical, fantastical mirror universe of the conspiracy theorists who created the world we live in today.

katie surridge
peacock – ing
Mixed Media Sculpture – Hand Forged Steel, Copper , Glass, Marble Mosaic, Gold Leaf
4 x 0.8 x 1.8 m
London, United kingdom
IG: katiesurridgeart

In this work, a man is captured mid-transformation into a peacock — a mythical and revered creature often associated with vanity, pride, and beauty.

The piece plays with the irony of the term ‘peacocking’ — a slang word found in the urban dictionary used describe exaggerated self display , often used to describe how people present themselves online or in social spaces.

In an age of filtered realities and AI, the peacock-ing man serves as a symbol of the tension between selfhood and spectacle, vulnerability and display. The piece draws on the visual language of classical craft — bronze, mosaic, stained glass — not for nostalgia, but to invoke the weight of myth, ritual, and monument. These ancient craft methods, usually reserved for sacred or monumental works, become tools for personal mythology and contemporary identity.”

Laura Campbell
Slot
Photographic Collage
Sarasota, Florida, USA
IG: artcamp3

Sunlight and water—humanity’s first mirror. The power of technology—our last mirror?

Lawrence Mason Jr
Constructed Confinement
Black and White Film Photograph
Shapleigh, Maine, USA
IG: docmase

I made this picture in London in 1999 at the rear of the Adel Rootstein Mannequin factory. I found a discarded nude fashion mannequin abandoned in a barbed-wire protected cage. I was touched by this beautiful human figure confined within this most spartan and degrading environment. Why was she a prisoner outside a factory building, open to whatever weather came along, and the gaze of the dustmen making their rounds to pick up refuse? I’m deeply touched by this image because her constructed confinement and downward gaze surrounded by prison bars and barbed wire seem to support invisible inward senses that define her existence. Dali’s images often occupy a space between dream and reality. In my image, the mannequin exists in an environment that reveals suggestions of suspended time, faded identity and a human figure lost within her constructed confinement. 27 years later, I see in this image, themes in Existentialism and Surrealism that recall the work of both Dali and Giacometti.

Leland Mains
cafe wall rose
Drawing
San Francisco, California, USA
IG: 666dirtysocks666

I took photos and drew the collage.

Leni D. Anderson, MLIS, MA.AC
A FAUSTIAN AGE II – THE SEVEN CHURCHES XXI-C
Acrylic on Canvas
Columbus, Ohio, USA
IG: eschatontransition

As an autodidactic artist, theologian, art historian, former special collections librarian/archivist, and service-connected disabled veteran who served as a US Army military police, I bring a diverse background to my work. My artistic inspiration, both in concept and execution, stems from my military experience and my subsequent studies of influential artists such as Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Albrecht Dürer, Bob Thompson, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Joseph Beuys. My artwork explores a broad spectrum of historical and contemporary religious, socio-political, and cultural issues, employing a distinctive blend of religious and secular iconography. This approach invites viewers to challenge and reflect on how we, as individuals and as a society, interpret and shape our understanding of the world and the information we encounter daily.

Loren Rhoton
Fiesta Loca
Mixed Media
Tampa, Florida, USA
IG: artycarbuncle

Even in the midst of celebration, I sometimes feel like a three-eyed donkey with a broken guitar for an arm. I try to embrace the moment, to feel the happiness and inclusion that seems to come so easily to others, but just say something nonsensical and spill my entrails in a gooey technicolor mess. Sometimes I catch a whiff of an emotion and feel human, but mostly it’s meaningless. So, I smile and nod and act like everyone else. Keep faking it till I make it. Someday I’ll be a real boy.

Lorenzo Silvan
Ultima Sigaretta (Last Cigarette)
Acrylic on Fabric
Milano, Italia
https://silvanzappellastudio.wordpress.com/

Una sigaretta si estende a tracciare un segno che si ripete e si sospende, che vibra ma resta immobile: un frammento di esistenza che si osserva mentre si consuma, la promessa di un compimento che non arriva. La geometria diventa il luogo in cui la condizione umana si mostra nella sua nudità: un ordine che non consola, un rigore che non salva. L’ironia è l’unico linguaggio possibile per attraversare questa consapevolezza senza esserne schiacciati. L’ultima sigaretta del tabagista che non smette, l’ultima del condannato che attende: due estremi che convergono in un unico punto concettuale, dove rinvio e fine, desiderio e resa, progetto e fallimento si sovrappongono. Ogni destino resta così sospeso tra volontà e necessità, tra il gesto che vorrebbe compiersi e la sua inevitabile incompiutezza. In questa frattura si annida l’esperienza dell’esistere.
PS: Siamo un duo (Silvan Zappella). Per l’iscrizione abbiamo usato i dati di uno di noi due, ma l’opera è a firma Silvan Zappella.

Maciej Toporowicz
Quicksand
Photograph
Grahamsville, New York, USA
IG: noqontrol

Works by Dali and Giacometti are touching the unknown, the unnamed, the eternal enigma, what Jacques Lacan called The Real. Space as pressure, not container. Figures in void. Emptiness.

Margaret Fitzgibbon
Furry Fingers
Glazed Porcelain Ceramic, Vintage Artic Fox Fur, Stainless Steel Wire, Plastic Padding
H.32 x 32 x 66 cm
Dublin, Ireland
IG:fitzgibbonmargaret1

‘Furry Fingers’ is one in a series of brightly glazed, mixed media porcelain sculptures inspired by Modernism and in particular Surrealism, responded to the idea that…‘The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity’. I love the way these radical artists forged new paths that still influence artists today. This series of work explores overlooked Surrealists like Dora Maar, Eileen Aga, Meret Oppenheim and Leonora Carrington. Furry Fingers (a large version) references Dora Maar’s strange photomontage that juxtaposes a shell from which a wooden mannequin hand emerges, and also references Meret Oppenheim’s original ‘Furry Luncheon’ famous mixed media sculpture from 1914.

Maryna Bugai
Sunrise or Sunset?
Drawing / Existential Pattern
Athens, Greece

For this piece, I was experimenting with both oil and regular crayons, creating it in my characteristic style — intuitive patterns shaped by leaving tiny negative spaces.

Megan Sliger
The Wanderer
Ink, Aquarel
Den Haag, Netherlands

Claiming moments of serenity amidst an unsettled search for place and meaning, through a changing environmental landscape. The relationship of knowledge and creativity to the physical world, and their role in a changing climate.

Mikaya Petros
Flying Bird Humanism
Golden Resin
Milan, Italy
IG: mikayapetros

Flying Bird Humanism represents a philosophical meditation on the human condition at the intersection of existence, freedom, and transcendence. This mixed media sculpture engages directly with existentialist inquiry—particularly the lived experience of solitude, the paradox of freedom, and the existential search for authentic identity—while proposing harmony between human consciousness and the natural world. The work draws profound philosophical inspiration from Greek classical and Presocratic thought, particularly the cosmological visions of Heraclitus and Anaximander. The ever-changing nature of being mirrors the sculpture’s interplay between static form and dynamic symbolism. Anaximander’s concept of the “apeiron” (the unlimited, boundless infinite) resonates with the work’s exploration of transcendence beyond material constraints, suggesting that human consciousness participates in something universal and unbounded.

Morazo Jajan
Resurrection
Acrylic
Bialogard, Poland

As a believer, I wanted to create a symbolic vision of the moments that occurred before and after the Jesus Christ Crucifixion. The contrast between light and dark colors is like Hell and Heaven; like death and life.

Nacima Chambonniere
The Witness Who Is Fading
Digital Painting
Ile de France, France
IG: nacyx.art

This work explores the fragile boundary between presence and disappearance. The figure exists less as a body than as a consciousness — a witness suspended between being and fading. The image reflects on solitude, responsibility, and the instability of perception: what remains of us when the world no longer reflects us back?

Nicholas Spindler
August Afternoon
Pencil on Paper
Los Angeles, California, USA
IG: Spindler.art

Hot August afternoon possibly waking to a dream or reality from an unintentional sleep. Inspired by the strangeness of waking up from a dream not realizing you are still in a dream.

Nino Lomadze
Portrait in a Frame
Painting
Tbilisi, Georgia
IG: nino.lomadze.5
A framed portrait, like the formal construction of a work of art, takes shape between historical shifts in mind. The objectification of the portrait’s attributes occurs as an existential parallel between art and the content of time.

Odette Miller-Hard
Existential Portrait, Assembled
Digital Collage Composed of Fragments from over 300+ Images of Salvador Dalí and Alberto Giacometti
Walton-on-Thames, Hersham, Surrey, England
IG: @odessoart

This portrait is constructed entirely from manually selected pixels taken from over 300 images of artworks by Salvador Dalí and Alberto Giacometti, layered by hand in Photoshop. My process draws on their shared interest in the double image, where a figure is never fixed but continually shifts between states. By assembling the portrait from fragments of their work, the image holds together while simultaneously undoing itself. The portrait is intentionally sculptural, referencing Giacometti. I have embedded my own photos of Giacometti’s work taken at Tate in London into the collage, collapsing direct encounter and reproduction into a single figure. The work also responds to how artist images circulate endlessly online as reproduced pixels, detached from material context. Through manual labor & accumulation, the portrait occupies a “double image” state of simultaneous birth and death.

Olga Chekmazova
Existence in Fragments
Antique Plate, Salvaged Doll Fragment, Textile Upholstery, Wooden Frame
Cirencester, England

Exploring whether the end of an existence marks a finality or a point of reconstruction, this work seeks harmony in a space where wholeness and safety have already been lost. The assemblage brings together a shattered antique platter and a porcelain doll head salvaged from debris, reintegrating these remnants to reflect on the nature of displacement. By setting these sharp, fractured elements against a frame lined with soft upholstery, the piece suggests that recovery is not a return to the past, but the birth of a reality that is more grounded than the original. This reborn object does not hide its scars; the gold-filled cracks are the very foundation of its new integrity and a testament to its survival. Created as part of The Alter Vista project under the principles of surrealist functionalism, the work argues that a state of being which accepts its own fragments is far more profound than any lost imitation of perfection.

Oreoluwa Adeeko
Adunni in Paris
Acrylic on Canvas
Cambridge, UK
IG: oreoluwa_adeeko

Adunni in Paris is a cornerstone of my Pride Series, representing a profound intersection of geographical displacement and internal permanence. The work depicts a subject caught in a moment of “choreographed stillness” against the backdrop of one of the world’s most iconic urban landscapes. While the setting is undeniably European, the presence of the subject is unapologetically rooted in her own history. The painting explores the concept of the “diasporic gaze” — the act of seeing and being seen in a space that is not your ancestral home. Adunni does not appear as a visitor trying to fit into the Parisian aesthetic; instead, she occupies the frame with quiet, regal authority. The composition forces the viewer to confront her humanity and complexity, moving past the “single story” of the migrant to find a person of deep dignity and intellectual interiority.

Özlem Mehder
Öz
Digital Painting
Ankara, Türkiye
IG: @ozlemmehder

“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” — André Malraux. “Öz” (meaning Essence in Turkish) depicts man’s position in the world not as a mere presence, but as a quest. What is seen here is not just the shadow of a countenance, but the soul folding in upon itself—a melancholic curiosity toward its own reality. Consequently, “Öz” is both the poetry of duality and the very fabric of time. The dull yet sharp gaze appearing on one half of the painting represents the definitions in which the world imprisons us; the dark silhouette on the other half represents the undefinable — the “pure essence.” While the countenance looks out at the world, the shadow retreats into its own infinity.

Paata Turashvili
Erosion over Time
Acrylic on Plywood
Baden-Württemberg, Germany
IG: paataturashvili05

“Know Thyself — The Erosion of Time.” In this work, the small form is not a replica of the large form, but rather its organic part — a missing element that creates wholeness. This idea merges with the paradoxical nature of time: a single moment stretches into infinity, while an entire life unfolds in an instant. Here, time is no longer objective; it dissolves, disintegrates, and remains only as fragments of memory. Past and present merge, and within chaos, new potential is born. My works provoke reflection: Where does individual experience end and the collective begin? What is time — reality or illusion? And who are we within this ever-changing space?

Paul F Yount
How a Man and a Woman Became Erased
Oil on Canvas
Venus, Florida, USA
IG: @paulfyount

The fact that we exist is an illusion based on the regulations and framework imposed on our existence. I renounce all that was before in the regulations and rules of our background. The painting shows how all is transformed into a myth which can easily vanish or stay exact in the path of life. The man and woman are gone; they have taken on an absurd persona of half-skeletal animal and half-recognizable human shape and form. A myriad of questions arise as to their past and how this relates and contrasts to their present existence. Life is a hyperbole constantly morphing and transforming the essence and meaning from one linear to a non-linear moment in time and space. When will it be safe to become yourself again, to be connected to thought processes that align with progressing humanity through acceptance and love? You will never know what a person has inside their minds and hearts. The secrets we keep are to manipulate, control, and protect our own lives.

Rachel McCabe
Aquarius
Oil on Canvas
House Springs, Missouri, USA

The Age of Aquarius.

Raphael King
Covid 19
Acrylic
Homosassa, Florida, USA

Painted in April of 2020. My feelings of helplessness with the onset of Covid 19. Leaning only on God for protection: “Protect me O’Lord, under your wings, behind your shield in your high tower.” This is part of a series of uncertainty paintings.

Ravi Modi
Snellen Chart
Cast in Bronze
Stanmore, Greater London, United Kingdom
IG: ravianartist

“What do you see?” It echoed not only from ophthalmologists but from everyone around me after I lost an eye. It took over a year to create this Snellen Chart; it revisits the 1862 diagnostic tool, built on standardisation and the “normal” body. The chart doesn’t ask what one sees, but how closely one conforms. Each fractured cubic frame captures a moment where perception slips between memory, sensation, and imagination. Vision reshapes itself before it can be fully understood, transforming fluid experience into an unexpected solidity of bronze. The material arrests time, holding impressions in a state that feels both permanent and dreamlike. Cast from my archaeological hometown, the bronze carries accumulated histories and residual traces. Its broken and unfinished forms resist closure, suggesting that memory is not preserved through clarity or completeness, but through distortion, absence, and what endures after loss.

Rich Smukler
Sevil’s Loom
Digital Photography
Jupiter, Florida, USA

The devil weaves his evil outcome for those unfortunate souls.

Robert Smyth
Sanbenito
Digital Photographic Collage
Dublin, Ireland
IG: robertandrewsmythart

Digital collage from X-rays, photographs, and ink drawings. The title references the caps worn by those under scrutiny by the Spanish Inquisition, while the choice of imagery explores the existential choice between maintaining the identity of an individual versus the need for public conformity to dogma.

Rollie Erickson
Small Portrait of Dali
Oil on Panel
Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA

This is a small portrait (8″x8″) of Dali who has been reduced to his essence: one eyeball facing the world alone, uplifted by the miracle of his moustache. His moustache grows from the shadows created by an object that only the artist can see, and that only he is responsible for, on that vast existential plain of existence.

Sajan Neupane
Mind’s Menagerie
Ink and Pencil Colors in Notebook
Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada

I wasn’t going anywhere in life. I draw many things but can’t stick to a single thing, so I just drew this without my logic and reasoning—just rawness. Then I realized that these thoughts create a very jumbled mind: many thoughts arise, both scary and good.

Sara Bahrani
The Musician
Acrylic on Canvas
Tehran, Iran
IG: Sarahbahrani

The concept of time in space is a mental journey through the mysteries of the universe. From time dilation to time loops, space-time is a playground of wonders. Every time we gaze at the stars, we are reminded that we are not only seeing space, but also looking into the past. In “The Musician,” the sense of time-space is a movement seen in Giacometti’s works. My idea for the movement of the figure in the infinite galaxy became music; so that I could express the imaginative sense of colors and lines from the context of the existentialist works of Dali and Giacometti.

Scott Scheidly
Interconnectedness
Oils
Orlanda, Florida, USA

My painting inspiration is that everything in the universe is connected and that all things are part of a larger, interconnected system.

Sheida Khosrojerdi
Wooden Fish Bowl
Oil on Canvas
Iran

This work represents a type of handmade Iranian wooden basket that was once used to rinse rice or catch fish from a pond.

 But here, I see it as a fish bowl . From this angle, the wicker and wooden texture of the body of the basket reminds me of the walls of a fish bowl, which surrounds and imprisons the fish because of the limited space it creates for the fish. In other words, while giving them the opportunity to survive, it also confines them within a framework that it has given them.
 
The wicker texture of the bottom of the basket reminds me of the waves of water that the fish create as they move, a movement that continues in this limited space.

 My fish are alive and full of life; contrary to the traditional function of the basket, which should be dead, and despite this limitation, they try to continue living. In other words, where fish are a symbol of life and freedom, they are forcibly imprisoned in a limited space.

 On the other hand, the situation of these two fish in the work is similar to all people who are talented and valuable, but are trapped in an inappropriate environment and, despite all the limitations and difficulties, grow and live courageously.

Simran Rai
Me,eM
Mixed Media (Digital, Photo Collage, Watercolor Painting)
West Bengal, India
IG: ssii.mma

“Me,eM” confronts the exhaustion and disgust of existence. Through glitches, repeated forms, and a collapsing grid, it depicts a landscape where nothing feels whole. Circular voids are not spaces of healing but pits we fall into repeatedly, carrying fragmented versions of ourselves. The stacked faces inside these voids expose the hypocrisy of escape—each attempt adds another trapped self to the pile. Frozen textures and fragmented squares mirror life’s pixelated, overprocessed, and tiring nature. The work rejects redemption, presenting a blunt acknowledgment that we recycle the same thoughts, failures, and struggles, endlessly multiplying versions of ourselves within the same void.

Sohelia Parvin
Between the Lines
Mixed Media
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
IG: sohelia.2

My work is a visual diary entry that captures the “in-between” moments of a budding romance. Inspired by the soundtracks of my life, I used a blend of scrapbooking and illustration to create a bridge between two languages. The piece highlights the contrast between the poetic certainty of seeing someone “a thousand times” and the very real human fear of falling. Through a combination of hand-lettered lyrics, delicate line art, and layered ephemera, I wanted to create a tactile sense of nostalgia. This artwork serves as a reminder that while love can be daunting, it is ultimately a series of brave, small steps taken in the company of another.

Soulaimen Aboubacar
Digital Ocean
Oil on Canvas
Ariana, Tunis, Tunisia
IG: soulaimen_artstudio

This painting sits between two worlds, a quiet landscape stretching into dusk and a city glowing far below. A figure stands elevated above it all, neither grounded nor floating, caught in a strange middle space. The scale feels off on purpose. She’s large but not powerful, visible but uncertain. Around her drift these translucent forms, ghosts of fish, spectral and blue. They move through the air like escaped thoughts, pieces of inner life that have broken free and become visible. The city below isn’t really a place you can go. It’s more like a feeling, distant, full of light, buzzing with everything expected of you. Ambition, pressure, the pull of the world. But it stays far away, unreachable from where she stands. Nothing’s happening in the painting, and that’s the point. No action, no resolution. Just suspension. The figure exists in this exposed stillness, surrounded by space that seems too big, too open.

Stephen Ferris
Mind Like Water
Ink and Acrylic on Cradled Birch
48 x 48 inches
Calgary, Albetra, Canada
IG: @stephendferris

This surreal work of the inner mind has its own abstract universe of logic. Everything I make starts with a strict set of minimalist guidelines. I investigate all abstract laws visually through geometric abstraction. Procedures, ideas, and rhythms form and grow off of my initial conditions, one mark at a time. Half-automatic drawing techniques navigate and guide. Through intense exploration and repetition of patterns, I utilize each piece as a basis for exploring the duality of my conscious and subconscious mind. Fantasy, folklore, fairy tales, space, op art, kinetic art, literature, pareidolia, sound design, broken metronomes, psychology, silent film, pantomime comics, religion, nostalgia, textiles, and the observation of recurring patterns in nature and daily life inform my work.

Svetlana Bakhareva
No Way
Acrylic, Marker, Spray, Plastic Bag, Oil on Canvas
100 × 140 cm
Barcelona, Spain
IG: @Art.bakhareva

The work depicts a liminal psychological state on the threshold between life and death—the moment of recognizing inevitability. The figure is fixed in a state of inner tension and vulnerability, where resistance is no longer possible, yet acceptance has not yet occurred. The body appears unstable: contour lines simultaneously hold the form and suggest its dissolution, while drips of paint intensify the sense of loss of control. Carnivorous plants (venus flytraps) emerge as a symbolic presence, evoking the approaching inevitability of death and the condition of transition. This work is part of a larger series exploring transitional states of existence—from the first awareness of mortality to an attempt to imagine a mode of being beyond the body.

Takuya Inoue-Higa
Thirst for Love
Watercolor
Nago, Okinawa, Japan
IG: takuya_inoue_higa_art

Until the day I can say “I love you.” Even when love leads to despair, who could call it ugly to continue choosing to love someone anyway? In my past, there was someone I deeply loved. My feelings were never returned, but meeting that person began a long journey—one in which I started to think seriously about what it truly means to love. I live with several limitations caused by mental illness. While I have my strengths, I know I am not someone easily loved. Still, I have not lost faith in love. It might be easier to change myself—to adapt and become someone more easily accepted by others. But choosing to seek love with sincerity, while remaining true to who I am, is directly connected to the depth and honesty of my artistic expression. I cannot love people indiscriminately. Yet I continue to wait, with quiet longing, for the day I meet someone I can truly love—and for the moment I can finally say, “I love you.”

Thandiwe Phiri
Kambili
Digital Art
Blantyre, Malawi
IG:_ujayo

Growing up, African figures in art have usually reflected the gloom of living in third-world countries, and the pain is the main message. As a digital artist based in Malawi, Blantyre, I want to present Malawian figures in a joyful and playful light, which also truly reflects the joyful spirits of Malawian people even through struggles and pain. This piece is called Kambili, which means “let me live” in Igbo, portraying an abstract subject standing in a bold stance, interacting defiantly with its surroundings, demanding to be seen and perceived.

Timothy Jackson
Divine Alignment
Acrylic
Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
IG: Taj_art_flow

My first inspiration was from current events that the world has been facing lately, along with the suppression of truth from past indigenous cultures. Upon entering the contest, I noticed aspects of surrealism and existentialism, and a hint of Dali’s expressionism. I called it Divine Alignment because of all of the above.

Tina Bauer
01001110 01101111 01100010 01101111 01100100 01111001
Acrylic on Canvas
Berlin, Germany

This work explores existentialism at the intersection of nature and digital eternity. A central canyon with jagged edges resembling the teeth of time acts as a gravitational maw, swallowing the four elemental forces humanity once “owned”: fire, earth, wind, and water. Yellow fire flows downward, earth shifts as sand, wind tears at a shipwreck, and a sand-powered waterwheel churns red matter, the remnants of physical life, into the void. While an eerie yellow glow emanates from the abyss, it is pierced by a sterile white binary code translating Emily Dickinson’s query: “I am nobody! Who are you?” At the horizon stands a microscopic figure in a triumphant pose, its shadow merging with the abyss. Is this stance a final act of human defiance or a celebration of ego before the collapse? Are we souls, or just a stream of data losing its warmth as it turns into digital silence? Does the individual survive the transition?

Vakim Pirdon
Reality Aware of its Impunity
Digital Artwork
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Fate imposes itself on our will and treats us with indifference. Man acts in order to be, and reality transforms us into beings, even against our will. Silence flashes in the fragile immediacy of the moment, surrendered to its fate, seeking the furtive heartbeats of becoming. It opens its crystalline paths, while it rises above the somber promise of destiny.

Volana Raveloson
Half Full
Digital Art
Antananarivo, Madagascar
IG: vmadagascar261

There is beauty in what remains unfilled — in the spaces that wait patiently for what’s to come. It is quiet optimism, of a heart that trusts there will always be room for love, for hope, for learning, for becoming. To be half full is not to lack, but to live in balance — to hold enough, yet still make space for the small and sacred things that find us along the way.

Yaren Aycı
Good Morning
Oil on Wood
Beyoglu, Istanbul, Turkey
IG: yarenayci

The sunrise is not a herald of hope here, but a mass of endurance that seeps into the room and thickens. The amorphous pile at the center is the physical manifestation of the uncanny weight and existential dread imposed by a new day. As light floods in, the world does not brighten; instead, existence turns into a heavy sediment, retreating into its shell to wait out the “absurd” cycle of time. This work depicts the inevitable invasion of the first light and that frightening moment of paralysis at the threshold of starting the day.

Yiah-Ling Si
a crumpled cartography; of viscera I
Sculptural Digital Tapestry
Seri Kembangan, Selangor, Malaysia
IG: myintrepidart

While editing photographs taken on mobile, late one evening, I began experimenting with their brightness, exposure, contrast, and shadows, along with their saturation, warmth, and tint. Gradually decaying, evaporating that which I had observed, into slow-gathering flotsam of dissolution and obscurity. These catalytic dust clouds, formulating between early inquiry and expanding imagination, approximated phenomena occurring with alchemical interactions, shifting atmospheric conditions. Of venturing outward, yet inwardly, with wide-eyed wonder, a curiosity in how technology might be applied to atypical expressions of reality and possibility. This piece resulted from a trio of seashells I photographed, then manually “crumbled” and “sculpted” digitally through a progression of seaming, hueing, and overlaying. Semblance alternating with translucence.

Ying Chen
Pinned by the Void
Ink on Paper
Chengdu, Sichuan, China
IG: chenkongkong1970

This sketch stems from a period of psychological near-death. At that time, I was so fragile that a mere glance from the outside was enough to trigger a violent internal collapse. I felt worthless, as if besieged by attacks from all sides. However, I eventually realized that these sharp “rays” might stem from my own subjective illusions. The straight lines piercing the body in the drawing symbolize perceptions that caused no physical harm yet rendered my spirit incredibly vulnerable. It was only when I learned to shield myself or reconstruct reality with a form of “fictional positivity” that I found a foothold for existence amidst this crossfire of the void.

刘 井里 (Liu Jingli)
负重的形式 (Form of bearing weight)
陶瓷制品 (Ceramic Sculpture)
吉林省延济市卧龙南园, 吉林省, ( Jilin Province, Yanji City, China)

This work takes “cow” as an abstract prototype, stripping away its agricultural and symbolic meanings, and transforming it into a state of existence. A slender and isolated form that stands and tilts, implying an unstable situation for the individual in the world. The ox horn no longer symbolizes power but becomes a posture pointing towards emptiness. The cracks and embedded marks on the surface of the sculpture are not decorations but evidence of existence—individuals are constantly shaped in responsibility, time, and absurdity. The work attempts to respond to existentialist propositions: does standing firmly itself make sense amidst an inescapable burden?