The February Artist of the Month selected in the BE OPEN Regional Art competition for emerging artists

BE OPEN Art, an online art gallery set up by BE OPEN think tank, a humanitarian initiative founded by international entrepreneur and philanthropist Elena Baturina, summarized the first month of a new reginal competition for emerging artists.

With the beginning of year 2023, BE OPEN expert team started selecting those of the artists who best represent the cultural and artistic identities of the Eastern Mediterranean region.  The region that encompasses Cyprus, Turkey, the Greek Dodecanese islands, and the countries of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Egypt is the first stage of the competition that will run for the first three months of the year.

By the majority of votes made by the visitors of BE OPEN Art online gallery in February, the title of the Regional Artist of the Month goes to Jovanna Theodosiou. Jovanna studied Fine Art in Kingston University, UK, and currently lives and works in Nicosia, Cyprus.

One more Artists of the Month will be selected by the public in March, and the winner of the Eastern Mediterranean stage will be chosen out of the three by BE OPEN’s expert jury. Each regional winner will be awarded a money prize of 500 euros, while a selection of artwork best representing the region will be publicly exhibited and the artists celebrated.

Each regional stage lasts 3 months, therefore 4 stages will be run a year, with a winner named for each of them. Next, the focus of the competition will move to the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and Central Africa at the end of the year.

The regional competition will run along the regular ongoing work of BE OPEN Art, whose experts select for the gallery 20 artists every month, using online voting to name the Artist of the Month and the Artist of the Year.

Aiming to showcase and support emerging talents, BE OPEN Art selects artists at an early stage of their career – the project sees its mission in looking for the new influencers in the art scene.

Being featured in BE OPEN Art is an opportunity for the emerging artists around the globe to be seen, and a starting point for connections to be built between the new creators and collectors of today. As an online gallery, BE OPEN Art has remained an exciting and highly relevant space for dialogue between the new artists and collectors, who are now, amidst global humanitarian turmoil, are even more inspired to produce and collect socially meaningful art.