Real artwork, side by side. You decide.
A friendly tournament celebrating the art people are making right now. Artists enter a piece, everyone picks a favourite matchup by matchup, and one work is carried all the way to the top by the people who love it.
Browsing is free and open to anyone. Voting takes a free account, so every person counts once.
The bracket is being drawn
—— § 01 · This round
Nothing is open for voting yet. Until the first round starts, the bracket is yours to predict.
Fill out a predictionPredict it, vote it, and see how you did
—— § 02 · The tournament
It happens in two parts. First everybody fills out a bracket, calling the whole thing before a single vote is cast. Then predictions close, voting opens, and the community decides it one matchup at a time over a few weeks. Nobody is being ranked as an artist here — it is a room full of people saying which piece moves them, and that is a lovely thing to be in.
01 / Predict
Fill out your bracket first
Before any voting starts, pick your way through the whole bracket to a champion. Predictions close the moment round one opens, so this is the part to do early.
02 / Vote
Back the pieces that move you
Open a matchup, look at both, and choose the one you would hang on your wall. One vote each, changeable while the round is open, and you can skip any you have no feeling about.
03 / Say why
Talk about it with people who care
Every matchup has its own thread and its own link. Say what you saw in a piece, compare notes with somebody who saw something else, and send it to people who would love it. Both artists are reading.
04 / Win
See how close you got
Predictions are scored against the real results as rounds land, and the closest brackets rank on the leaderboard.
More eyes on your work
—— § 03 · Why enter
A bracket is the best excuse we know to make people stop and look closely at a piece they would otherwise scroll straight past. Every artist in the field gets that, all the way through, whether they win a round or not.
New eyes
Your work in front of people who have never seen it
Every matchup is a page about two artists. The art runs big and uncompressed, with your bio, your profile link and a follow button right beside it. That comes with entering — you do not have to win anything to get it.
We promote it
We put the tournament in front of new audiences, at our expense
We run paid campaigns on Instagram and Facebook, and other places as the tournament grows, reaching collectors, gallery owners and buyers who do not already follow you. It costs you nothing, and it is the reason to be in the bracket rather than watching it.
Win or lose
Everybody who takes part keeps something
Half the field goes out every round; that is just how a bracket works. Whoever gets fewer votes keeps a permanent page for their piece, the round it reached, and their work in front of the whole community.
Three steps, and none of them cost anything
—— § 04 · Entering
Step 01
Make a free ArtHelper account
It takes a minute. Art Madness runs on ArtHelper, so the account you vote with is the account you enter with.
Step 02
Add your work and your bio
Upload the pieces you are proud of, write a short bio, add your links. This is what people see when your work comes up in a matchup.
Step 03
Tell us you want in
When a tournament opens for entries, say you are in and choose the piece you want to enter. No jury, no entry fee, no portfolio review.
The field is picked by hand, so this puts you on the list of artists who want in rather than straight into the bracket. Free, and there is no portfolio review.
What you get, and when it happens
—— § 05 · Prizes
Everyone who takes part
A permanent page for your piece — the round it reached, the votes it drew, and your name linked to your ArtHelper profile from every surface it appears on.
The champion
A permanent winner page for the tournament, with its own share card, that stays up after the bracket closes.
The closest brackets
Predictions are scored against real results and ranked on a leaderboard as rounds turn over.
The full prize schedule is published with each tournament’s round dates, before entries are confirmed.
This tournament’s rounds
Round dates go up as soon as the field is confirmed. A round runs about a week, and the next one opens as the last one closes.
§ 06 · Sign up
Be part of the next round
An email, a password, and whether you make art yourself. That is the whole thing, and it drops you straight back where you were.