MetaU Art International Competition | 2025 Winners
Photography, Mixed Media
b. 1956, USA, now lives in Egypt. Iverson was a photographer for Time Magazine for 25 years covering the Middle East from 1981-2007, photographing all of the major events of the region for a quarter century. His work explores the intersection of history, culture, and memory. As such, his images are not just interpretations of our natural and built environments, but also explorations of the human experience — of the ways in which our built environments shape our lives and our identities. Iverson has amassed an archive of more than two million images in his practice as a visual artist of more than fifty years. His work provides a rich source of historical and artistic study, allowing me to re-interpret longstanding narratives and hold on to memories that are being erased.
Painting, Drawing, Printmaking
b, 1997, Belarus. In her practice, she works with the point where intention meets accident. Kulikouskaya is interested in the moment when a structure slips out of control and begins to form itself through a combination of deliberate action, accumulated chance, and the physical resistance of the material. This transition — when the work stops obeying and starts behaving like an independent organism — is the core of her process. She aims to create spaces that do not impose a message but allow the unseen, the unplanned and the quietly emerging, to define the final form.
Painting
b. 1993, South Korea, is a queer visual activist based in Seattle, USA, and Seoul, South Korea. Lee’s representative work consistently embraces the challenges posed by their surroundings, capturing current queer culture through symbolic subjects and themes. As a visual activist, they are drawn to lives that have been marginalized, misread, or erased, especially within Asian, queer, and trans communities. Their goal is not to produce a heroic image of identity, but to stay with ambiguity, softness, and contradiction. Painting for them is a long, attentive way of thinking with others. The finished work is less a conclusion than a record of shared time, care, and the effort to be seen truthfully.
Textile, Mixed Media, Digital Art, Performance Art
b 1996, Nigeria, now lives in USA. Oladepo-Ajagbe's art practice explores the intersections of culture, materiality, and memory through fiber and digital pattern design. Deeply rooted in Yoruba philosophy, she is guided by proverbs that emphasize perseverance, craftsmanship, and the transformative power of the human hand. Oladepo-Ajagbe primarily works with upcycled fibers and digital media, with a slow, deliberate, and layered process, blending analog handwork with digital composition. This hybrid approach mirrors the duality of my experience: rooted in tradition, yet responsive to contemporary life. Her art seeks to preserve the language of craft while inviting dialogue about adaptation, resilience, and belonging. Through texture, color, and rhythm, Oladepo-Ajagbe aims to connect the past and the future, thread by thread, pixel by pixel.
Mixed Media
b. 1975, China, now lives in California, USA. Yan began her career as a faculty member in a business school, where she taught and conducted research in organizational behavior. After five years in that role, she decided to pursue her long-standing interest in architecture and earned a Master's degree in Architecture. She then worked professionally in the architecture field, while also teaching architectural design studios. During this time, Cate was frequently invited to serve as a critic for architectural studio reviews, contributing insight grounded in both design practice and pedagogy. Most recently, Yan shifted her interests from Architecture design to boarder artistic practice. Yan’s work sits between painting and sculpture, informed by her architectural training and a sustained interest in three-dimensional space. Working with paint, wood, paper, and various materials, she creates relief-like compositions that emphasize structure, layers, and material presence. She is influenced by traditional Chinese drawing, particularly from the Song dynasty. Philosophically, her work reflects life as an unfolding journey, approached with a whimsical and playful tone. Through layered construction and intuitive making, she invites viewers to pause, wander, and engage with the work as both a physical object and an imaginative space.