2025 - Icons

Theme: Cultural or Pop Icons
Deadline: August 28, 2025
Artist Notification: August 30, 2025
Art Delivery Date: August 30 to Sept 1, 2025
Artist Reception: Thursday September 4th from 6:00pm to 8:30pm
SHOW RUNS: September 4 to 27, 2025
$35 for up to 3 images
Commission: 65% Artist, 35% Gallery

​For this exhibition Las Laguna Art Gallery is asking artists to explore the notion of cultural and pop icons.

A cultural icon is an object made by a human being that is identified by members of a culture as representative of that culture or a physical thing such as the national tree, flower or pastime.

For example America is often represented in art by an apple pie, a flag, baseball, the Statue of Liberty or an Eagle. For England cultural icons may be a red telephone booth or double-decker bus. For France, cultural icons may be the Eiffel Tower or a Gallic rooster. For Japan, cultural icons may be the Maneki-neko (beckoning cat), the Cherry blossom tree, or Koi fish.

Each county and many major cities across the globe can be identified by their icons. For example the icon for New York is a Big Apple; the icon for the icon for San Francisco is a Golden Gate Bridge or Trolley Car. These physical things are representative the city.

A pop icon is a celebrity, character or object whose exposure in popular culture is regarded as a defining characteristic of a given society or era.

Pop icons can be movie stars, recording stars, athletes, or people throughout history that did something notable and are remembered long after their passing.

Examples of pop icons include Elvis Presley, Gandhi, Mozart, Einstein, Michael Jackson, Walt Disney, David Bowie, Prince, John Wayne, Bruce Lee, Elton John, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Bruce Springsteen and many others. Sometimes these pop icons can be identified by a single image. (For example, Prince used an identifiable symbol and Elton John could be identified by his iconic glasses. The Rolling Stones are identified by lips.

This exhibition invites artists to explore the premise of cultural or pop icons.

Acceptable mediums include: Acrylic, Airbrush, Charcoal, Collage, Color Pencil, Computer Art, Digital Art, Digital Photography, Drawings, Encaustic, Fiber Arts, Glass Art, Graphite, Illustration, Mixed Media, New Media, Oil, Pastel, Pen and Ink, Photo Assemblage, Printmaking, Sculpture, Traditional Photography, Video, and Watercolor.

Note: All artists who submit to this show will be accepted and have at least one of their submitted works posted on our website. A select number of artists will be selected to send their work to our gallery for our in-person exhibition at our brick and mortar gallery in Laguna Beach, California.