The time has come to reveal the results of the fifth edition of the Bizzarro Bazar Contest!
This year, the entries were once again numerous and full of imagination, and I sincerely thank all the participants: our family of bizarre creatives gets bigger and bigger every year, and this can only fill me with pride.
Let’s get started!
Sambuco envisioned, for his vintage composition, “an old-time newsie intent on shouting, in these words, the praises of Bizzarro Bazar’s hypothetical store of wonders.” No better way to start!
For all the world’s
Satiated souls
Fascinated
By the unexplored
Seeking the wonder
To which our brains
Are unaccustomed!
Run hungry
Run fast
For every taste
And personality
There are stories
Of life and death
Of strange and macabre
Amenities!
Run curious
Run fast
For every taste
And sensibility
Bizzarro Bazar’s store
Opens its doors
Of wonder!
(Sambuco: Instagram)
Any fortune teller can read the future regarding classic questions about health, love or work.
But the fortune teller envisioned by Andrea Kendall Berg answers only strange and unusual questions — thanks to the intercession of her wacky otherworldly friends.
The only downside: the tarots end up giving the same answer every time…
(Andrea Kendall Berg: Instagram)
Elena Baila, in those idle, torrid days of summer, created this little animation that, in addition to paying homage to Bizzarro Bazar, seems to me to be an excellent advertisement about the risks of prolonged exposure to the sun.
(Elena Baila: Instagram, Facebook)
Perhaps works of art should never be analyzed in search of literal metaphors, but in Debora Campagnoli’s self-portrait, it almost seems as if her eyes have decided to look at the world through the lens of the Macabre… resulting in the brilliant colors of life in bloom breaking through the monochrome.
(Debora Campagnoli: Facebook)
ElaGhi has composed a lyric with a romantic, crepuscular tenor: lending her voice to a statue, her verses transport us to the mournful, decadent atmosphere of a Victorian cemetery.
Who among us would not want to walk among those bumpy tombstones under a leaden sky?
Here’s a question that everyone asks themselves at one time or another: can a flayed woman still be beautiful and sensual?
What’s that you say? You never wondered? Dude, you really are strange.
In any case, Pamela Annunziata shows us that the answer is unequivocally positive. (Pamela Annunziata: Instagram, Facebook)
“I am vast, I contain multitudes,” wrote Walt Whitman.
Eleonora’s surrealist collage seems to suggest a similar inner immensity — with that anatomical Venus from whose entrails, as in a fantastic eruption, phrenological heads, Phoenix Arabs, circuses and hot air balloons emerge…
(Eleonora – Lola thumbnails: Instagram, Facebook)
Astrid, who sends me her work from Germany, created this fairy-tale chamber of wonders; the truly original solution is that she used an AI image generator to fill it with arcane and mysterious objects, then integrated the results into her digital painting.
The result is a Hermetical and indecipherable wunderkammer!
Regarding his stunning new creation, André ElRagno Santapaola writes, “I was inspired by two themes that are very dear to me, which I discovered and delved into precisely thanks to Ivan: anatomical preparations and Witkin’s magnificent photographs.
I made this silicone sculpture using a live cast, which I then tried to paint it in a hyperrealistic way. Being my first attempt with these techniques and materials, I am satisfied with the result.
I later set up the photograph by adding elements taken from my wunderkammer (the book is last year’s special prize!); the result is an anatomical preparation of a bizarre, yet beneficial, disease: curiosity.”
If you need a special effects artist for your next movie, now you know who to call! (André ElRagno Santapaola: Instagram, Facebook)
Illustrator Dimitri Fogolin places me in a singular tech-noir setting, where shady individuals with additional limbs implanted on their backs roam, where distinguished ladies wear gas masks, trains are sentient biomechanical hybrids, and mysterious dark ladies plot in the shadows.
Which is actually is a pretty accurate description of my everyday life. (Dimitri Fogolin: Instagram, Facebook, website)
It is no mystery that I have a soft spot for Elena Simoni a.k.a. Psychonoir’s tiny, delightful drawings, so much so that above my desk hangs the post-mortem portrait she gave me for last year’s contest .
This time Elena imagined a procession of freaks, saints, mummies and monsters (all inspired by topics I have covered over the years), marching to support the right to be proudly weird.
The only rally I would gladly attend in my life. (Elena Simoni Psychonoir: Instagram, Facebook )
WINNERS
Third prize
“There is treasure everywhere.”
With this phrase (borrowed from a volume of Calvin & Hobbes) Elisa Caviola presents her work, which won third place not only for its very elegant graphic rendering, but especially because it mixes digital techniques with an ancient and fascinating nineteenth-century printing method: cyanotype.
Elisa writes, “Lucky are those who look at the world with awe and wonder, because so much magic and beauty surrounds them. Especially in places where no one looks.” And even just watching the chemical process take place, and the cyan-blue emerge ever brighter, is something enchanting:
And here is the completed work: (Elisa Caviola: Instagram, Facebook)
Second prize
Chiara Toniolo, who won second place, decided to portray herself as an anatomical Venus intent on reading my book Mors pretiosa; what struck me, besides her beautiful pencil stroke, was the unusual atmosphere, languid and homely, and that almost casual caress of the skeletal cat…
Chiara says, “I could have depicted one of the many wax Venuses in anatomical museums, but it’s my professional deformation as an artistic nude model that’s to blame: I always have to put my face in it, and this time my guts too!” (Chiara Toniolo: Instagram, Facebook)
First prize
Gaberricci had also participated in our contest a couple of years ago, winning the third prize; this year, however, he really outdid himself, creating a very tasty and amazing whimsical crossword puzzle.
Virtually ALL of the definitions in these crossword puzzles refer to some article or video I posted here on the blog!
A true masterpiece of humor and puzzles, which will require a lot of effort to solve but, possibly, will make you discover (or remember) a myriad of unexpected and curious stories. What better to ask for?
(Gaberricci: website)
We have come to the end, and I am, as always, touched and moved. Once again, thank you to all the participants for gifting me with these wonderful works; I hope you enjoyed making them as well.
If you enjoyed any particular work, please remember to show your appreciation to the authors in the comments section.
Keep The World Weird!