101 Art Book: Faces Edition | Submissions Open Now!

Every few months, our team comes together around one very simple question: what should the next 101 Art Book be about?

It sounds simple, but it never really is.

We sit with ideas, talk through possibilities, think about what artists are making, what themes keep appearing in the work we see, and, perhaps most importantly, what might leave enough room for 101 different artists to say something of their own. We want every edition to feel like it has a heart of its own, while still leaving the door wide open for artists to walk through it in completely different ways.

That is one of the things we love most about the 101 Art Book series: every edition begins with a single word.

One word. No prescribed style. No particular medium. No single way of understanding it.

Because “floral” can become a garden, a memory, a pattern, or something entirely unexpected. Nature can mean a landscape, a body, a feeling, or the smallest detail found beneath a microscope. A single word can hold an incredible number of worlds when 101 artists are invited to interpret it.

And that is exactly what we hope happens with every book.

We don’t want to tell artists what a theme should look like. We want to give them a vision and see where they take it.

This time, the word is Faces.

How It All Started

The 101 Art Book series began in 2023 with an idea we couldn’t quite let go of: what if we created a book that brought together 101 artists from around the world, each responding to the same theme in their own way?

We loved the thought of seeing one idea travel through so many different artistic perspectives. One artist might approach it through painting, another through photography, another through an intricate mixed-media piece. Some interpretations might be immediately recognizable, while others might make you stop and think about the theme all over again.

So we began with our very first edition: 101 Art Book: Floral Edition.

The response was warmer and more overwhelming than we could have imagined. Artists from different places and practices came together around the theme, and the finished book felt like exactly what we had hoped the series could become: not 101 versions of the same idea, but 101 completely different ways of seeing it.

We knew then that we weren’t ready to stop at one.

Next year came 101 Art Book: Animal Edition, and once again, the submissions exceeded our expectations.

So we kept going.

In 2025, the series grew with four new editions: Portrait, Nature, Abstract, and Landscape. Each one brought its own collection of artists, approaches, stories, and unexpected interpretations. Then, in 2026, we added Food, Photography, and Dog to the series.

And now, we are here with another word, and another book waiting to take shape: Faces.

Our Vision For The Faces Edition

When you read the word Faces, what is the first thing that comes to mind?

Perhaps it is a familiar face you could recognize from across a crowded room. Perhaps it is your own reflection, the face you know best and yet keep discovering in different versions of yourself. Maybe it is a mother’s face, a child’s face, the face of someone you love, or the face of a stranger whose expression stays with you.

But a face is never just a collection of features.

A face can hold a memory. It can reveal an emotion before a single word is spoken. It can carry the traces of a life, reflect a sense of identity, or tell a story about the person behind it. The way we portray faces can also tell us something about the time and place we live in.

This is the starting point for our Faces Edition.

We are looking for works that explore the human face and portraiture as a reflection of our time, the people, emotions, identities, experiences, and everyday realities that define this decade.

Think about the faces you see around you today. What do they say about the world we are living in? How do people present themselves? What emotions are visible, and what remains hidden? How do culture, place, age, relationships, technology, memory, or personal experience shape the way a person is seen?

Your interpretation can take many forms. You might create a traditional portrait, an intimate self-portrait, a fragmented or abstracted face, a photograph, a textile piece, a sculpture, a digital work, or an experimental representation of a person.

You may focus on identity, emotion, memory, belonging, relationships, individuality, or the changing ways we see ourselves and one another.

Most importantly, we want to see people and their stories reflected through faces.

This edition aims to bring together faces from different countries, cultures, mediums, generations, and circumstances, creating a visual record of what this decade felt like through the people who lived it.

A hundred years from now, someone may look back at these works and wonder:

Who were we? What did we feel? What did we look like?

We want your work to help answer those questions.

What Can You Explore Through Faces?

You might explore faces as we know them through portraiture or self-portraiture, the people around you, your own reflection, familiar faces, strangers, identity, expression, or the stories that can live within a single gaze.

Or you might be interested in the faces we create and hide behind. Masks, makeup, costumes, alter egos, performance, and carefully constructed personas can all become ways of exploring who we are, who we want to be, and how much of ourselves we choose to reveal. These interpretations might touch on identity, culture, transformation, protection, or the different roles we take on throughout our lives.

There are also the faces we turn into symbols. Throughout history, certain faces have come to represent entire movements, cultures, generations, or beliefs. Think of the faces of artists, leaders, celebrities, cultural figures, saints, heroes, or even fictional characters. You might explore what happens when a person’s face becomes an icon, something that carries meaning far beyond the individual.

Every Medium, Every Perspective

You do not have to paint a face to participate.

We welcome painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, printmaking, illustration, ceramics, textile art, collage, mixed media, digital art, installation, makeup and body art, and experimental visual practices. If your medium is not on this list but your work meaningfully engages with the theme, we would still love to see it.

Your interpretation can be realistic, abstract, conceptual, symbolic, surreal, experimental, or somewhere in between.

Maybe your face is recognizable. Maybe it is fragmented. Maybe it is covered, distorted, imagined, or found somewhere completely unexpected. Maybe there is no human face in the work at all, but something about it makes us see one.

Artists may also submit multiple artworks for consideration, allowing our curatorial team to see a broader sense of your practice. If selected, one to three artworks will be featured in the publication, with the final selection thoughtfully curated to give each of the 101 artists a balanced place within the book.

What matters most is not whether your work looks like everyone else’s interpretation of Faces.

It is whether it gives us your way of seeing it.

Mark Your Calendar

The 101 Art Book: Faces Edition is now open for submissions, and artists have until September 10, 2026 to share their work with us.

If you are considering submitting, we recommend giving yourself plenty of time. A little extra time can make all the difference when it comes to choosing your strongest work, preparing your images, and making sure every part of your application is ready before you hit submit.

Once submissions close, every eligible entry will be carefully reviewed by our jury. We aim to announce the results within 10 days, although the process may take a little longer depending on the number of submissions we receive. In every case, all results will be announced within three weeks of the submission deadline.

And if the deadline is extended, the review period and announcement timeline will begin once the extended submission period has officially closed.

So, if Faces has already sparked an idea in your mind, don’t wait for the perfect moment to come around.

September 10 is the date. We can’t wait to see what faces mean to you.