Dear beautiful and bizarre friends,
Issue 25, the 6th anniversary issue of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine with Hannah Yata’s incredible surreal painting on the cover is out now! If you haven’t got your copy yet you can shop online or visit one of our stockists worldwide.
Beautiful Bizarre curated exhibition ‘Gaia Reborn: a Future Utopia’
By the time that this issue has been released and you are reading this letter we will have held the opening of our most important Beautiful Bizarre Magazine curated exhibition yet, at URBAN NATION MUSEUM FOR URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART, Project M/14 in Berlin. This exhibition is not only important because it is our first in Europe, or our first in conjunction with a Museum Gallery; in addition the theme of the exhibition is one very dear to my heart and is critical to our very survival as a species. For Gaia Reborn: a Future Utopia, I have invited the participating artists, over 50 of the world’s leading exponents of new contemporary art to imagine a world where we have come to terms with the havoc that humanity is wreaking on the environment. A world where we have accepted the need to change our behaviour before we drive more species to extinction and render this beautiful planet we call home uninhabitable.
“I was thrilled to see the participating artists express the theme in both an emotional and narrative way, allowing the audience to see the true powerful and dynamic nature of the earth – both as the protector/nurturer, and the destroyer enabling new life.”
By showing us the possibilities of a future where we tread softly on the earth, respecting all other species that share its bounties, it is my hope that these works will inspire us, individually and collectively, to make whatever contribution we can to the change that is needed. We need to move beyond the fatalism that so often pervades discussion on climate change and the many other negative impacts on the planetary ecosphere of humanity. We must each do what we can, and when those individual actions are added together they will make an overwhelming force for good.
Rebecca Leveille 
Rose Freymuth-Frazier 
Ciou Natalia Fabia
I, and the rest of the Beautiful Bizarre team, feel very privileged for the invitation to curate a Beautiful Bizarre exhibition at Urban Nation Museum’s Project M/14. On a personal level it has given me the opportunity to work and develop a wonderful friendship with Urban Nation director Yasha Young. Ours has truly been a meeting of minds from opposite sides of the globe, an appreciation that, through art, ideas can be introduced to the mind of the viewer, there to germinate and then blossom into action.
Collecting Women Artists Only
Also for the first time in this issue we have a Collector’s Profile, a fantastic interview with Steven Bennett and Elaine Schmidt discussing the artworks of the Bennett Collection and the raison d’être behind their female artist and representational/figurative works only collection. Without any doubt the resurgence of figurative and technique-driven art is no longer a niche in contemporary art, indeed it is the very reason for the existence of our magazine.
I cannot finish my letter without a mention of the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine Art Prize. In only our second year we have seen an amazing increase in the profile of this prize, with major corporate sponsors coming on board. The total value of prizes on offer now exceeds USD$20,000 and the winners will participate in our exhibition at Haven Gallery, Northport, NY, USA in December. So if you have not entered yet please go to our special web site, beautifulbizarreartprize.art – I can’t wait to see your work!
Much love xo
Danijela Krha Purssey, Editor in Chief
Connect with me on Instagram @danijelakrhapurssey
* Artwork at top by Audrey Kawasaki, from the Gaia Reborn: A Future Utopia exhibition
