“13th International Art Competition: A Selection of Purchase Award Winners,” Liahona, Sept. 2025, United States and Canada Section.
13th International Art Competition: A Selection of Purchase Award Winners
Every three years, Latter-day Saint artists worldwide showcase their faith and love of Jesus Christ through artwork in varied media.
It started with an idea: a competition to encourage the creation of Latter-day Saint art. That resulted in the Church’s first Fine Arts Competition held by the Church History Museum (then the Museum of Church History and Art) in 1987. While limited to paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, that competition grew in successive years to include varied media.
Today, the juried International Art Competition is in its 13th staging. This competition’s theme is “Lift Up the Hands Which Hang Down” (see Doctrine and Covenants 81:5). The competition has 584 submissions from 26 nations. That includes artists from South Korea, Norway, Argentina, Ghana, Tonga, Australia, Nigeria, the United States, and more.
Curators at the Church History Museum chose 150 pieces to exhibit. Jurors awarded 14 purchase awards and 10 merit awards. Five visitors’ choice awards will be given near the end of the exhibition in January 2026.
“I like to think of the International Art Competition as a worldwide testimony meeting, with artists bearing testimony in many different artistic styles and languages,” said Church History Department curator Laura Paulsen Howe. “This year, we asked artists to ponder what it means to ‘lift up the hands which hang down.’ With expressions from New York to Nigeria, Latter-day Saints from around the world have expressed the many ways we love and serve.”
Artwork in the competition expresses the faith and divine aspirations of Latter-day Saints in a growing worldwide Church. This show and individual pieces bear witness and testimony of faith in and love of the Savior Jesus Christ by Latter-day Saint artists around the world.
In the following pages, you can view some of the award-winning artwork. It’s a small representation of a much larger exhibition—and devotion.
Deposition (oil on canvas)
Sarah Hawkes, born 1998, Utah
The composition of this work resembles many images of the Savior as His body was removed from the cross. The central figure here is the artist’s mother, a woman who has fought breast cancer. The other women in the piece represent the nurses, doctors, and friends who supported her on her journey. “[My mother] believes it is a spiritual gift of women to understand how to lift one another spiritually, emotionally, and sometimes physically” (Sarah Hawkes).
A Collective Lift (red earthenware clay with colored porcelain slip)
Andrea Larsen, born 1977, Utah (residing in Tennessee)
Inspired by chain-link quilt patterns, Larsen creates a ceramic work where the four corners of each square appear to lift and be lifted by adjacent squares. A Latter-day Saint community provides opportunities to lift and be lifted. “Even the strongest among us need to be lifted. Even the weakest among us can lift” (Andrea Larsen).
Sacred Mending (acrylic and oil)
Paige Crosland Anderson, born 1989, Utah
Painted quilt patterns within this altarpiece represent the ways individuals reach—for help, for purpose, and for repair. The reaching supplicants become part of God’s reaching, symbolized by the open arms of the altarpiece that extend outward toward the viewer. “Through seeking revelation, trying our best, making missteps, and trying again … , we become part of His outstretched, healing hands” (Paige Crosland Anderson).
I Lift You; You Lift Me (watercolor and ink)
Claire Forste, born 1995, Washington (residing in New York)
Forste paints mirrored figures: in the top scene, an oranged-dressed woman carries the woman in pants; in the bottom, it is the oranged-dressed woman who is carried. “Embracing this cycle of ministering and being ministered to is what makes us a Christlike people” (Claire Forste).
She Leaned In (oil)
Dilleen Marsh, born 1952, Texas (residing in Utah)
Captured at a busy lunch counter, this couple shares a quiet moment. The man feels heavy and distressed. The woman does not speak but leans on his shoulder, showing compassion for the sorrow he—and perhaps she—feels. “Women have a natural power of compassion to lift up the hands that hang down. In this tender moment of need, she was there to lean in” (Dilleen Marsh).
C’mon, Mom … (ceramic)
Ryan Moffett, born 1970, Utah
A mother sits on the ground, her hands hanging down in exhaustion, perhaps from playing games, reading stories, or making snacks. But a small child lifts her hand, asking for one more. “That perfect, unconditional love … in some way gives a mother the boost of energy to rise and play one more game, read one more story, watch one more trick, do one more dance, make one more snack, fix one more owie, and give one more hug” (Ryan Moffett).