Three students from art universities in Romania won the NEW WAVE Art Prize competition, 2026 edition, launched by the Bog’Art Foundation. The young people created spectacular works of art inspired by the theme of this year’s competition, “Human Value at the Beginning of the Age of AI”, bringing to the fore the relationship between humans and technology in a global context marked by accelerated transformations.
Radu Gheorghe, Dana Guzu and Ana Huțanu impressed the jury with their works and each received a prize worth 2000 euros.
55 projects were entered in the contest launched by the Bog’Art Foundation in April 2026. Artists were encouraged to answer, through a work of art, some essential questions: How do we build our identity in a world where the border between real and virtual is becoming more and more diffuse? What changes in the artist’s creative process? Is artificial intelligence a tool or a partner? Can technology understand emotion or just simulate it?
Proposals could take the form of a painting, drawing, sculpture or installation and had to reflect a personal vision of how artificial intelligence is redefining human identity and relationships.
Following the judging, eight applications were selected, each finalist receiving the sum of 500 euros for the realization of the proposed work.
The final works were exhibited on Thursday, July 9, in an opening hosted by the Sandwich Neurohope gallery in Bucharest and analyzed by a jury consisting of Bogdan Doicescu – Founding Member of the Bog’Art Foundation, Catinca Tăbăcaru – Gallerist, Co-Director of RAD Fair, Daniela Pălimariu – Artist, Co-Director of RAD Fair, Ștefan Sava – Artist, Co-founder of the Proiect Salon, Mihnea Mircan – Curator, Plan B Cluj Foundation, Lorena Breaža – Architect, Founder of The Challenge Academy.
Following the judging, three works were named winners.
Radu Gheorge impressed at the NEW WAVE Art Prize with a series of paintings inspired by photos from his family archive. “My proposal explores ethnic identity in a context dominated by technology and globalization, where personal memory risks being replaced by algorithmically generated versions. By processing images from my family’s archive, I built a hybrid avatar, located between memory and digital simulation,” explains Radu Gheorghe.
Dana Guzu has created a landscape whose creation process can be likened to that of algorithms. “My project proposal consists in the creation of a large-scale work that allows the viewer to enter the imaginary of the digital landscape. I associate, thus, the immersiveness created by size, with the integration of artificial intelligence technology in human endeavors, as well as vice versa – the penetration of the human instance into the artificial universe”, says Dana Guzu.
Ana Huțanu impressed with a large installation made of personalized pillows. “The installation aims to represent a personal database, which maps through a puzzle of irregular and organic shapes, internal personal processes and their externalization through painting. This fragmented work represents the fluidity of human experience, changeable and imperfect, but without which we would robotize our existence”, explains Ana Huțanu.
“We believe that the NEW WAVE Art Prize has all the ingredients to become one of the main benchmarks for young artists in Romania, a complementary space to formal education that offers something essential: visibility, resource and confirmation that the work of today’s students matters for the art scene in Romania”, declares Bogdan Doicescu.
NEW WAVE Art Prize is a project created by the Bog’Art Foundation to discover and support talented students from art universities in Romania. The competition provides a professional framework for affirmation, facilitating the transition from concept to the production of a work exposed to the general public.
The works of the NEW WAVE Art Prize finalists can be admired by the public at the Sandwich Neurohope gallery until August 30, 2026, from Wednesday to Friday, between 12:00 and 17:00.
