BE OPEN Art online gallery set up by Elena Baturina’s humanitarian think-tank BE OPEN, continues to run BE OPEN Regional Art for the fourth year in 2026. The regional competition for emerging artists aims to support those whose art best represents their regional, cultural and ethnic identities, for the third year now.
For the purpose, the BE OPEN expert community selects those artists who best represent the artistic tradition of a certain region to feature in the BE OPEN Art gallery and offer them greater visibility. From May to August 2026, the competition has been exploring emerging art of Central Europe: Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Artworks by twenty artists from these countries appeared in the online gallery every month, and a public vote selected the Regional Artist of the Month. At the end of the stage, the four monthly winners were ranged in accordance with the number of votes and assessment by the international expert jury headed by Michal Novotný, Director of the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery Prague; Branka Bencic, Director of MoMCA, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, Croatia, and Olga Butinar Čeh, Curator at ZDSLU, the Slovenian Association of Fine Arts Societies.
The title of the Artist of the Region and the €500 grant goes to Marie Bokova, an artist studying Ceramics and Porcelain at UMPRUM in Prague. Her practice explores the relationship between human histories and the natural world through figurative ceramic sculpture, relief, and material-based processes. Combining ceramics with wood, wax, and organic matter, her work draws on biological processes as both practical techniques and conceptual frameworks.
The honourary mentions of the region are the Artists of the Month Bogdana Peric Milenkovic from Serbia, Helena Mirich from Croatia, and Lorena Iavorschi from Romania.
The Artist of the Region receives a cash prize and international visibility through the BE OPEN Art platform. Through the Regional Art competition, BE OPEN Art continues its mission to support emerging artists worldwide, fostering artistic innovation, cross-cultural dialogue, and the preservation of regional identities through contemporary art.
In 2026, BE OPEN Regional Art will proceed with the competition in East Asia.