Organizer Information
UPWARD Gallery is a fully remote, online platform founded in 2021 for painters, artisans, and arts professionals of all levels and ages, with a team spread across the world. UPWARD Gallery does not sell art directly, nor does it hold a drawing for cash prizes; its stated goal is to help artists gain media recognition, international awards, and evidence of professional engagement through a competitive juried-show format. The gallery organizes recurring themed online juried exhibitions and publishes a printed periodical, UPWARD's Quarterly, alongside a Special Edition series that profiles individual artists. The gallery does not promote or support AI-generated art. Chasing the Wind is presented within this ongoing series of themed juried exhibitions.
Title & Description
Chasing the Wind — Juried Art Exhibition
This is a juried, competition-format online art exhibition open to artists working in traditional and digital art media, as well as arts and crafts disciplines. Entrants submit digital images of their work through the UPWARD Gallery website during a defined entry period; accepted works are judged by a jury panel and, depending on the entrant's age category, ranked for prizes. The exhibition is not a game of chance — outcomes are determined by jury evaluation of artistic technique, handling of medium, design and creative elements, and overall impression/impact.
Categories
- Painting
- Drawing
- Sculpture
- Printmaking
- Digital
- Craft
- Fiber/Textile Art
- Ceramic
- Collage
- Mixed Media
Eligibility
- Entrants must be at least 18 years of age or older
- Entrants must be legal residents of the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, or the European Union, and of the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence
- Open to all traditional art media (oil, watercolor, acrylic, pastel, mixed media, gouache, egg tempera, pen and ink), drawing media (graphite, charcoal, colored pencils, scratch board, markers, metal point), digital painting, and arts/crafts (beadwork, pottery, embroidery, floristry, batik, stained glass, two-dimensional collage, fabric art, etc.)
- Work must be original, from the hand of a single artist; work produced in a workshop or class under a teacher's direction is also eligible
- For works based on reference photographs, the artist must have taken the photographs themselves or obtained written permission from the photographer
- No profanity or political artwork
- Works deemed unsuitable for publication, or that do not meet the above criteria, are ineligible at the Sponsor's sole discretion
Program Benefits & Awards
- Electronic certificates of participation for all entrants
- Electronic certificates for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners
- Electronic Merit Award, Honorable Mention, and Finalist certificates for other selected works
- 1st-place winners are interviewed by UPWARD Gallery editors for publication in the print edition of UPWARD's Quarterly and in the site's Interviews section
- 1st, 2nd, 3rd place, and Merit Award works are featured in UPWARD's Quarterly and in curated galleries on the site's Discover section
- Authors of featured works receive social media promotion (Instagram)
- 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners may enter two artworks free of charge in the gallery's next exhibition
- Limit of one prize per entrant; three winners total per media and age category
Application Fee
- Registering on the UPWARD Gallery website: $15 for one entry; $12 per entry for 2–4 entries (e.g., $24 for two); $10 per entry for 5 or more entries (e.g., $50 for five). Fees are charged after works are accepted by the Sponsor's moderator and are non-refundable.
- Without registering on the website: $36 for 1–2 artworks; $64 for 3–4 artworks; $84 for 5–6 artworks (flat pricing regardless of exact count within each tier). Fees are non-refundable.
Application Requirements
- Digital image file(s) in JPG or PNG format, under 10 MB, sized between 800x800 and 2000x2000 pixels
- Completed entry form (via website account, or the no-registration submission form)
- Payment of applicable entry fee via PayPal or credit card, submitted after moderator approval (registered route) or after fee-link notification by email (non-registered route)
- For the no-registration route: maximum of 6 artworks per entry
How to Apply?
Online Application
Key Dates
- Application Deadline: 20 July 2026
- Winners Announcement: 28 July 2026
- Winner Notification: within 30 days of the close of the Entry Period, by email
Location
Online
Additional Details
- By entering, artists grant UPWARD Gallery a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free right to use the entry on the Sponsor's websites and in ads promoting future exhibitions, including editing, cropping, or overlaying text, without further permission, compensation, or notification; the Sponsor may also use the entrant's name and/or photograph for the same purposes
- Judging criteria: artistic technique, handling of medium, design and creative elements, and overall impression/impact, assessed separately by age category (18–21 and 22+)
- Entrants represent and warrant that their entry is original, does not infringe third-party rights, and that they hold all rights necessary to submit and assign rights in the entry
- Any entrant suspected of tampering with or disrupting the exhibition will be disqualified; all Sponsor decisions are final
- Entrants agree to release and indemnify the Sponsor from claims arising from participation, and agree that disputes will be resolved individually, without resort to class action
- Aside from a winner's alias, year of birth, city, and country, information collected will not be shared with third parties
- The Sponsor may terminate or revise the exhibition if compromised by technical issues, and will select winners fairly from entries submitted prior to termination in such a case
- Void where prohibited by law