Line of Beauty: Young Masters People’s Choice Award Winners Exhibition

Cristina Schek (b. Transylvania, Romania)

Cristina Schek is the photosensitive kind: she thinks in pictures, her imagination always in focus. A Transylvanian Surrealist rooted in London, Schek creates conceptual digital works that explore identity, illusion and the shifting nature of representation. Literature, cinema and art history act as her continual muses, guiding her into layered visual narratives where the self becomes both subject and symbol.

Estelle Lovatt FRSA, leading UK art critic, art historian, author and lecturer, describes Schek as “in a league of her own” writing: “Cristina Schek’s incredible visual adventures embrace life, beyond life. Piloting artistic vision between reality and imagination I’m calling Surreal Neo-Romantic Universalism. Questioning what’s factual by what’s make-believe, Schek bends Einstein and Newton, making her new artwork fairytales for grownups.” Lovatt further observes Schek’s work as a powerful departure from traditional portrayals of the female muse: “Different to a man’s representation of the female, Schek inspires us to be the victor, not the victim… Schek’s surreal portraits carry feminist weight and contemporary resonance.”

Schek’s work has gained international recognition, including the Young Masters Focus on the Female Art Created During Lockdown Award in 2021 for Florence Lightingale, inclusion in the BFAMI Art Exhibition at Phillips Auction House in 2022 and 2026, and the W4th Plinth Award in 2023, where her 4 × 4m public artwork The Ceiling In The Sky was unveiled as the winning piece by Dame Siân Phillips. In 2025, she received First Prize in the Young Masters People’s Choice Award, leading to Line of Beauty, a duo exhibition with Alexandra Baraitser in South Kensington, on view from 15 January to 1 June 2026 and extended due to popular demand. She also received a Highly Commended recognition from the Rudolph Blume Foundation Acquisition Award.

Her work has been exhibited internationally at major art fairs including British Art Fair, London Art Fair, Frieze EXPO CHICAGO, Art Miami, Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary, NY Art Fair and LA Art Show, as well as in museum exhibitions at Elmbridge Museum and Kingston Museum in London. Her work is held in private collections across the UK, Europe and the United States.

Alexandra Baraitser (b. Cape Town, South Africa)

Based between Cambridge and London, Alexandra Baraitser is a painter whose work elevates the quiet dramaturgy of everyday objects. Her subjects, chairs, lamps, living-room furniture, bridges, office buildings and train-station seating, are contemporary still lifes of intensely designed forms. Through saturated colour and elegantly flattened space, Baraitser frees these objects from their functional constraints, transporting them into states of subtle unreality.

Though she works from closely observed photographs, her paintings reside on the edge of abstraction. Their atmosphere is liminal, suggestive of memory, emotion and the thresholds of lived experience. Figures occasionally appear, loose and ambiguous, slipping into this heightened domestic or architectural stage.

Baraitser has exhibited widely, including at Flowers Gallery (Small Is Beautiful), the Soho Open at GPS Gallery (2025), and the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (2024–2025). She won the People’s Choice Award and was Highly Commended for the Young Masters Women’s Art Award (2025). Earlier recognition includes The Cambridge Show at Kettle’s Yard (2019), a British Council Award for a residency at Design Tasmania (2005), and the prestigious Abbey Scholarship in Painting at The British School at Rome (1996–97). She has also been shortlisted for The Mostyn Open and The Momart Fellowship (1999), exhibited at the Barbican Centre Galleries (1996), and was a finalist in the NatWest Art Prize (1998) and John Moores Painting Prize (1996). Additional honours include the Ray Finnis Trust Art Funding Award, the Florence Trust Studio Award, a Commissions East Award for mentoring with Rachel Thomas (Hayward Gallery), and a COVID-19 Emergency Funding Award (2020).

Her work has been featured in Bouyant Art, The Independent on Sunday, The Observer, The Arts Desk, and resides in collections including Clare Hall (University of Cambridge), Design Tasmania, J Sainsbury PLC, and several private collections.

About Young Masters

Founded in 2009 by gallerist Cynthia Valianti Corbett, Young Masters Art Prize is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to supporting emerging and mid-career artists who draw inspiration from art history. Through exhibitions, awards, mentoring, and international opportunities, Young Masters nurtures diverse talent and connects creative voices across generations and geographies.

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