Our Art Contest began in 2012 as the Japan Day Art Contest, when we first invited the public to submit illustrations for our official posters, flyers, and programs. The contest was such a success, resulting in so many splendid entries and yielding such wonderful winning artwork, that we decided to make the art contest an annual part of the Japan Day event. This year marks the 14th annual Art Contest and the fifth Japan Parade Art Contest, and we can’t wait to see your work!
The application’s details are as follows:
Deadline: END OF DAY Friday, January 16th 2026
Theme: Japan, New York, Parade
※We ask participants to create artwork incorporating all three main visual themes. Submissions that do not incorporate these themes will not be considered.
Submission Guidelines:
JPEG format, portrait orientation, actual size H24” x W18”
Initial submission must be under 2MB
Prize Winners will be later asked to send full resolution versions
2D work only
Artwork must be the original creation of the artist
No Photographs
No “AI art”
Only one entry per artist
NOTE: Artwork must be able to be transferred to a digital format in high resolution. Unfortunately, we cannot accept media such as paintings that cannot be digitized to be true to their original.