“Fine art at its best has the power to move one to tears, or grab your sensibilities and rivet you in the moment with an overwhelming sense of beauty and excitement,” wrote Frederick Ross in an essay titled: “The Philosophy of ARC: Why Realism?” He’s an art collector and founder of the Art Renewal Center (ARC).
Founded in 1999, the New York-based ARC supports and promotes realist artists and realist art education around the world. The nonprofit also acquires notable realist artworks.
In 2004, the inaugural International ARC Salon Competition received over 1,100 entries, from over a dozen countries. Now in its 17th iteration, the competition has grown to over 5,000 entries, from 87 countries.
Around 100 of the best works from the 17th and 18th International ARC Salon Competitions will be exhibited at Sotheby’s in New York City in the summer of 2026.
Judging the ARC Competition
Art scholar and ARC trustee Vern G. Swanson judged several categories in the recent competition. He lauded the high caliber and variety of realist artists’ entries. “There are few exhibitions, and none so large or encompassing, that highlight the scope of realist art as does the ARC Salon,” he wrote in an email.The Best in Show
On Jan. 7, the ARC announced the 17th International ARC Salon Competition winners. Canadian artist Pavel Sokov’s painting “Watching the Dance” won the $25,000 Best in Show award, provided by The MacAvoy Foundation. According to its website, the foundation “supports artists producing timeless, meaningful art using masterful techniques.”
Sokov’s deft brushwork rendered tangible light, dust, and heat in his painting of a young Dassanech girl watching her village dance in the remote Omo Valley of southeastern Ethiopia. Sunlight illuminates the top of her head, perhaps highlighting the reverence of the ritual to her people. She wears a striped cloth tied at her waist as a skirt, and strings of red and blue beads adorn her neck and arms. She looks back at the viewer, as if to invite us to watch with her. Sokov used the arid Omo Valley atmosphere to his advantage, shrouding the Dassanech dancers in the background with the air full of dust and mystery. We can almost hear the dancers jostling into position; some are adorned with body-paint and others hold spears in readiness for the ceremony to come.
“Watching the Dance” is part of Sokov’s “Stories of the Tribes of Ethiopia” series, which he painted in 2022 after spending two months living among eight different tribes in the Omo Valley. According to his artist’s statement, the series is part of Sokov’s ongoing mission “to discover, understand and share the stories of traditional cultures around the world.”
Each Omo Valley tribe has different customs and traditions, but all have one thing in common—little to no contact with outsiders.
Sokov immersed himself in each tribe as much as he could by sleeping in a tent in each village and hiring a local guide. He created numerous portrait paintings from life and made plein-air paintings of each village and its surroundings. He also took reference photographs and bought local artefacts.
Pavel Sokov
Sokov was born in Moscow in 1990, at the end of the Soviet era. When he was 10 years old he emigrated to Montreal, Canada with his family. Having always loved art, he started accepting commissions at 17 years old.In 2014, Sokov studied at the Watts Atelier of the Arts in Encinitas, California. Time Magazine commissioned the then 24-year-old Sokov to illustrate one of its 2014 Person of the Year Runners-Up, President Vladimir Putin. The Russian president isn’t the only famous commissioned portrait in his portfolio. He’s painted Arnold Schwarzenegger and members of the Saudi royal family.
His “Stories of the World Collection” and “Stories of the Tribes of Ethiopia” series’s show his passion for capturing traditional cultures from around the world. He’s now wielding his paintbrush to capture another of his passions: science. Titled the “Gravitas Project,” Sokov is in the process of painting portraits of 20 scientists, some of whom have made groundbreaking discoveries yet who aren’t widely known.
Since 2018, Sokov’s paintings have regularly won him accolades and awards in notable art competitions. Most recently, the crown prince of Bahrain granted Sokov a Golden Visa for exceptional talent. He won Best Narrative Award and in the National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS) Best of America 2024 competition and Best Figure/Portrait Award in the NOAPS Best of America Small Works 2024 competition.
For Sokov, winning the 17th International ARC Salon Competition Best in Show award is career-defining and “recognition [that] he’s on the right track,” he wrote on Instagram.
He added: “It is especially meaningful to me that one of my Ethiopian tribes paintings took this award as this series represents everything I stand for.” He created it for himself, which is often risky. “That is scary sometimes, to know that what you are passionate and crazy about, may not be relatable or resonate with anyone else. But if you hope to stumble upon making something genuine and unique, you just have to follow your curiosity, and yours alone.”
Sokov’s “Stories of the Tribes of Ethiopia” series doesn’t “easily hang in a collector’s living room,” he said, “but it does represent everything that I am. I am proud of that.”
