Each year, our art competition reminds us just how incredibly creative and inspiring our community is. In 2025, more than 500 submissions arrived from around the world, spanning painting, drawing, textiles, sculpture, film and photography. Our panel of four judges carefully selected a shortlist, before choosing their individual judge's choices and reaching a unanimous decision on the two runners-up and the winner. We are delighted to share the results today...
Congratulations to our winner, Emma Duggan!
First prize | Emma Duggan
Storm Candle, 2026
Monoprint with embroidery & applique on plant-dyed fabrics (Alder & Amaranth)
22 x 32cm
Emma says: "A piece with combined influences from places I walk during waking hours and those I visit in sleep, with two dream figures holding candles and a Mother Mary or water spirit energy I sense during walks around a lake near to my home. I find that water is a particularly strong transmitter of spiritual information. The dream coincided with a full moon in Leo near Candlemas in February 2025. The Alder in the picture is also the source of the dye used for the fabric. The image begins with a painted mono print which I have worked into, often scrying for marks as well as referring to my dream drawing notebooks."
Congratulations to Emma Duggan on a well-deserved win! The judges were unanimous in selecting your artwork as the winner of the Inspiration from Dreams 2025 art competition.
Second prize | Natalie Kay-Thatcher
The Swallowed Sun, 2025
Pen and paper
59.4 x 42cm
Natalie says: "This illustration seeks to convey the immensity of sea and sky. A dead star is drawn down into the watery surface: a phenomenon that obscures the world and presses upon my inner being."
Third Prize | Uwe Henneken
Transformation People, 2016-2024
Oil on canvas
220 x 260cm
Uwe says: "In 2016, while my mother was undergoing a life-threatening operation, I began painting at the exact moment she was taken into surgery. For hours, I worked as if in a trance – suspended between fear, hope, and focused attention. At the time, the painting did not feel like a finished artwork but like a temporary threshold – a visual space shaped by uncertainty, care, and devotion. Only years later could I return to it and complete it."
Our judges' choices
Our four judges each selected their choice works to go to the shortlist. Of their select list, they chose one each as their favourite. Here, we present the judges' choices...
RivaEtAl
Great Goddess Sekhmet, 2025-26
Acrylic on canvas
45.5 x 35.5cm
Chosen by Gill Matini, College Principal & Creator of the Annual Art Competition
RivaEtAl says: "This painting of the Great Goddess Sekhmet emerged first as an under drawing looking like an Extra-terrestrial, then transforming to a kindly and compassionate Lion Being with Light codes streaming from her decorative headwear. My connection to Sekhmet, the Leonines and Felines continues to evolve with new drawings and paintings developing over time."
Katharine Roberts-Brandt
Rivers of Connection - No separation, 2024
Gouache
140 x 59cm
Chosen by Jacqui McIntosh, College Researcher, Curator, Archivist & Writer
Katharine says: "This painting is an immersive dreaming into senses shared, connections fired, whether wolf, woman, snake or tree. There is no separation."
Qian Qian
Chaos and Shu-hu, 2024
Oil on canvas
100 x 100cm
Chosen by Simon Grant, Writer, Art Historian & Curator
Qian says: "The death of Chaos marks the birth of order, akin to the moment of awakening from a dream. As perception sharpens and distinctions are imposed, the undifferentiated realm of Chaos dissolves. Yet Chaos is not destructive – it is kind, generative and sustaining, much like the subconscious that fuels creativity."
Kate Tume
Sensitivity, 2022
Textile sculpture (mask)
40 x 30cm
Chosen by Isabel Seligman, British Museum Curator of Modern & Contemporary Drawings
Kate says: "Following the death of my husband in 2021 I made a series of masks exploring my new identity as a widow. This piece explores the sensation I had of being overwhelmed. The ears, nose, mouth, eyes and texture of the mask represent the heightened senses, and feeling of the world now being too much, when in deep grief."
Our shortlisted artists
In alphabetical order, all shortlisted artists from which our judges' choices were selected:
Agata Bogacka, The Energy of the Dream; Alice Kilpatrick, Swan dreams; A R Ison, Ancestor; Anoushka Bysh, The Temple of Life; Bethany Stead, Open eyed dreams; Bethany Stead, Imitation; Blandine Bardeau, The Womb of the World; Camilla Siig, Sleep; Catherine Garrigue, Series entitled Des Bouches d'Ombre (Mouths of Shadows) The Awakening of Consciousness on Worlds inhabited by those who have already lived there; Dawn West, Hoard III; Ethan Pennell, The Faerie Séance; Gaynor Perry, Six Ravens Sleeping; Hazel Florez, Aine Listens to the Language of the Birds; James Reynolds, Mnemosyne; Kai Thorpe, Ideas Are Messages; Karl Dmitri Bishop, Made of This Place; Kate Laity, a dream; Kim L Pace, Apparition (Whispered Words); Leigh Ann Willar McDonagh, Enigmagnetic; Lesley Guy, Celestine (dream #1) and Celestine (dream #2); Lore Carbajal, Last night vision; Lorraine Wheatcroft, The watchers; Louise Lahive, The Wounded Woman; Mariana Gordan, Dreaming of my Owner; Marianne Walker, Self portrait at 55 (On Fire); Marielle Albers, Mirror; Naama Yuria, The Kreken's croon at high noon - seen from the side; Olivia Streeton, Over the Top; Paul Kindersley, Protagonist; Qian Qian, Finitude Unchained In Late Spring Blossoms; Rose Jane Dutton, Eudora the Luminous; Sara Sigurdardottir, Adolescence; Serge Goldwicht, Parallel universe; Susan Vasiljevic, Beth's House; Tomer Rosenthal, A Matter of Scale; Uwe Henneken, The Passage; Virginia Shepley, Faith in The Journey; Zachary Talbot-Mason, Riddles of the Wedding Feast
Congratulations to all our artists!
We will present the shortlisted works, including Emma Duggan's winning piece and our second and third prize-winners, in a virtual exhibition later this year. Congratulations to everyone who made it into the shortlist!
Thank you to EVERYONE for submitting your work for this art competition. Missed this one? Stay tuned to the newsletter for updates on next year's competition. And in the meantime, keep creating!
