Winners revealed SAKURA ART PRIZE 2025 at the TOKYO INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR.
Japan, Tokyo, 29th November 2025: The Winners have been announced in the 2025 SAKURA ART PRIZE, one of the annual highlights of the visual arts world.
Talented artists from across the globe competing in six different categories in the Sakura Art Prize. The victorious winners are announced live from Tokyo, Japan´s contemporary art capital, alongside this year's Tokyo International Art Fair taking place in the city.
Now in their fifth year, the SAKURA ART PRIZE were established to recognise and celebrate the achievements and contributions made by artists, galleries and art professionals worldwide. Categories range from painting, digital art, mixed media and graffiti to digital art, photography, illustration and sculpture, with prizes recognising the outstanding artists from around the world who entered the online competition.
Public votes as well as those from an acclaimed panel of jurors combine to decide which artist in each category will be awarded the title of winner. The Sakura Art Prize also honour one artist from all the category winners who will receive the title of “The Best Artist” and with it free exhibition at the next Tokyo International Art Fair, gallery exhibition opportunities as well as support and mentoring from the Sakura Group team.
"This year's awards have truly surpassed everything we've seen in previous years. More artists than ever before have been nominated and the calibre of entries has been exceptional, giving the jurors plenty to think about," Curator Tasha says. "What's more, art lovers from around the world have seized the opportunity to vote for their favourites, with thousands having their say on who should win.
WINNERS 2025 SAKURA ART PRIZE
PAINTING
Ovidiu Carpusor
ROMANIA
"I feel You..." (Joker), oil&acrylic&gold leaf
https://www.instagram.com/ovidiucarpusor/
PHOTOGRAPHY
Patricia Gagic
CANADA
PRESENTED BY Armstrong Fine Art Consulting
THE PATH
https://www.instagram.com/patriciagagic/
SCULPTURE/JEWELLERY
HTJ John
REPRESENTED BY: Galerie winkler / Tevairoa gallery
FRANCE
¨Eulogy¨
https://www.instagram.com/htjdesigns/
ILLUSTRATION
Olga Sova
UAE
Title:“Gatsby Vibe” Media: Mixed Media (Watercolor, pencil) Size: 54x39cm Year: 2024 Step into the enchanting world of the 1920s with this “Gatsby Vibe”-inspired watercolor painting, designed to evoke the elegance and whimsy of a bygone era.
MIXED MEDIA / GRAFFITI / TEXTILE
Anastasia Yanchuk
ITALY
The Pulse of Feminine Energy
https://www.instagram.com/anastasia_nati/
DIGITAL ART / AI / CRYPTO
Yusuke Nakamae
JAPAN
Between Tradition and Tomorrow
WORDS FROM THE WINNERS
“Winning the Sakura Art Prize 2025 is a deeply meaningful honor for me. I truly did not expect it, which makes this recognition even more special. This award represents not only acknowledgment of my artistic journey, but also a celebration of beauty, sensitivity, and feminine elegance as a universal language. I am sincerely grateful to the jury and the Sakura Art Prize team for supporting artists and for giving this wonderful opportunity to share my art. Thank you once again for this beautiful opportunity!¨ - Anastasia Yanchuk (Mixed Media Winner)
Anastasia Yanchuk (Mixed Media Winner)
“Winning the Sakura Art Prize 2025 in the Illustration category is a meaningful and inspiring milestone in my artistic journey. This recognition motivates me to continue creating with passion, curiosity, and authenticity. I am deeply grateful to the Sakura Art team for appreciating my work and supporting artists from around the world. Thank you for this incredible honor.” - Olga Sova
Olga Sova (Illustration Winner)
Olga Sova (Illustration Winner)
¨I am deeply honored to receive the Sakura Art Prize 2025 in the Digital Art / AI / Crypto category. My work belongs to an ongoing series titled Neo Japanesque, which explores contrast as a central theme—between tradition and progress, cultural memory and continuous development. The series reflects my interest in how traditional elements persist and adapt within rapidly evolving societies. Between Tradition and Tomorrow” is one expression of this exploration. Although presented as a digital artwork, it was created using 3D tools and hand-crafted processes in Photoshop, focusing on translating social observation into visual form. I sincerely thank the Sakura Art Prize for this recognition.¨- Yusuke Nakamae (Digital Art Winner)
Yusuke Nakamae (Digital Art Winner)
Yusuke Nakamae (Digital Art Winner)
"Returning to TIAF this year felt like stepping once more into a luminous threshold — a place where artworks breathe, and where inner landscapes find their echo in the pulse of the city. My first encounter with Tokyo’s artistic universe was in 2017, and this second return has unfolded with the same sense of wonder, but with deeper roots and a quieter, more certain voice.
“I feel you… – Joker” — the piece that received the winning inyernational recognition — was shaped slowly, almost ritualic, over 7–8 months. Oil, acrylic, liquid gold, and the edge of the palette knife became instruments of inquiry rather than tools: gestures through which I searched for the delicate frontier between the self and the world, between introspection and the shimmering intensity of the urban sphere.
It belongs to a cycle of seven works, each a fragment of a larger meditation on identity, vulnerability, and the shadows we share with the cities and world we inhabit.
To witness this work resonate — rising from a fourth-place beginning in TIAF (Roppongi Art Center) to being chosen by the public, the jury, and the organizers — has been a profound and humbling experience. Recognition feels, at times, like a quiet alignment of unseen forces.
With reverence and deep gratitude.
I would like to greet and congratulate all the artists who participated in the Tokyo International Art Fair, the art lovers who voted for me and visited the Festival, as well as the organizers of this extraordinary event, who once again rose to the occasion through everything they accomplished.
My heartfelt thanks for the trust and support!" - Ovidiu CARPUSOR (Painting winner)
¨Receiving the Sakura Art Prize for Photography is a profound honour that arrives at a deeply meaningful moment in my artistic journey. "Path" emerged from that liminal space where grief transforms into something luminous-where the weight of loss becomes strangely weightless, and sorrow reveals itself as another form of love.
This image speaks to what my mentor, Master Artist Dragan Dragic, taught me during our twenty-six years working together in France: that the most powerful art lives in the "in-between spaces"-where abstraction meets presence, where the visible dissolves into the invisible, and where a solitary figure walking through mist becomes every human being who has ever searched for meaning in the fog of existence.
I am grateful to the distinguished jury and the Sakura Group for recognizing work that refuses easy interpretation. In an era that often demands immediacy and clarity, there is courage in honouring art that asks viewers to sit with mystery, to feel rather than simply see.
The international scope of this award resonates with my belief that authentic artistic expression transcends borders. From my studio in Canada to the galleries of Roppongi, the language of visual poetry needs no translation. We all walk paths through uncertainty; we all become, at times, that solitary figure moving toward something we cannot yet see but somehow trust is there.
To emerging artists, I offer this: do not fear the spaces between knowing and not knowing. That is where your most truthful work awaits. The path itself is the destination.
With deep gratitude to the Tokyo International Art Fair and the Sakura Art Prize for this recognition.¨
Patricia Gagic - Photography Winner
Patricia Gagic - Photography Winner
Patricia Gagic - Photography Winner
HTJ John Sculpture Winner.
Tokyo International Art Fair 2025 SUCCESS!!!
Applications for 2026 are now open: https://www.tokyoartfair.com/apply-to-exhibit-tokyo-art-fair
Apply online to exhibit at the 9th Tokyo International Art Fair.
For more information please go to http://www.sakuraartprize.com. Facebook: @sakuraartprize Instagram: @sakuraartprize