One of the 2025 Grand Prix winners, Katrīna Levāne (Art Academy of Latvia), is currently featured in the Young Painter Prize nominees exhibition at Tartu Art Hall.
Among this year’s Young Painter Prize laureates and commendations are several names connected to the NOBA community:
• Ieva Kampe-Krumholca — Luminor Youth Empowerment Award
• Katrīna Levāne and Mantas Valentukonis — commendations
• People’s Choice Award: Katrīna Levāne
Celebrating its 17th year, the Young Painter Prize remains one of the key platforms for highlighting young painters in the Baltic region.
A similar dynamic can be observed among other laureates. The exhibition by Andra Rahe, winner of the 2025 Public Choice Award, has recently concluded at Draakon Gallery. Rahe’s practice explores themes of care, vulnerability, and resilience. Her graduation project series The Daycare Diary portrays everyday life at a day centre for people with psychosocial disabilities in Viljandi, aiming to build awareness and create a bridge between viewers and the lived experiences of her subjects — with sensitivity, honesty, and respect.
At Draakon Gallery, Rahe also presented a new direction in her work: the analogue photo series Little Women, which challenged habitual ways of looking and addressed questions of objectification and vulnerability through a nuanced social lens.
Together, these developments reaffirm the role of the Nordic & Baltic Young Artist Award as an important point of orientation — helping to identify emerging names and the directions in which contemporary art in the region is moving.
