Lulu Nowicki wins best in show at Art Center Sarasota
Appalachian State University studio art student Lulu Nowicki has received the best in show award in “Strange Weather,” a juried exhibition at Art Center Sarasota in Sarasota, Florida. Her oil painting “Degaussing the Demiurge” (2026) was chosen as the top work in a show of 75 pieces in a range of media.
Nowicki is pursuing a studio art degree with a concentration in painting and drawing. She describes herself as a surreal figurative artist and works mainly in oil on canvas.
“My work is a combination of surrealism, expressionism and physiological horror used to depict themes of transformation and intensity of human emotion,” Nowicki says in her artist statement. “I am inspired by the uncomfortable and the unknown. I enjoy dissecting the dramatic and nonsensical. I translate the turbulence of human existence into something visible, physical, and that can live suspended outside the body.”
The exhibition’s theme suits her approach. According to Art Center Sarasota’s catalog, “Strange Weather” uses its title as a metaphor for transformation, uncertainty and the uncanny rather than for actual weather. The call for entries asked artists to explore dreamlike imagery, psychological landscapes, improbable juxtapositions and “the strange beauty of the impossible.”
Nowicki’s work has also been shown in the Art and Design Expo at Walling Gallery at Appalachian State University; the Leading Legacy exhibition at Looking Glass Gallery; and the 4th Annual Women’s Art Exchange at the Beaches Museum in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
“Strange Weather” is on view at Art Center Sarasota through Nov. 14.
