Videoinsight® Prize 2026

Irene Balia (Iglesias, 1985) is the winner of the Videoinsight® Prize 2026 with the work “Mezz’ombra” (acrylic on canvas, 150 x 100 cm, 2025–2026, Videoinsight® Collection).

The prize — promoted by the @videoinsightfoundation, established in 2010 and now in its sixteenth edition — recognizes and champions artistic practices that foster health, care, longevity, and psychophysical well-being. The work “Mezz’ombra” fully embodies the mission of the Videoinsight® Foundation – ETS: it transforms the aesthetic experience into a therapeutic and evolutionary process; it engages with the most intimate and latent aspects of human experience; and it sparks immediate emotional resonance, insight, and profound inner integration in the viewer.

The piece stood out for its extraordinary narrative delicacy, psychological depth, and the unsettling power with which it explores the “shadow zones” of the psyche and emotional memory. Through refined visual exploration, the allure of magical realism, and the evocation of ritual, the Artist constructs a space suspended between light and semi-darkness — a space that becomes a mirror for the complexities and transitions of the human soul. With an intimate and vibrant painting style, she investigates the human figure, domestic space, and the dynamics of emotional and romantic relationships. The depicted subjects appear suspended in time; their presence invites the viewer to engage in processes of identification and projection. The painted surface becomes an emotional mirror where the observer is invited to explore their own lived experiences, triggering inner insights and resonances. The imagery inhabits a suspended, captivating realm where it transforms into formal synthesis, dreamlike atmosphere, and profound psychological inquiry.

The perspective on relationships is dispassionate and ironic; the narrative, mysterious. Everyday life is recast in a dreamlike dimension: domestic reality and human figures are not rendered as realistic portraits but are reimagined through a subtly surreal filter. Interiors, subjects, and botanical elements serve as theatrical backdrops for an internal narrative, where the ordinary takes on an ambiguous, evocative, and elusive quality.

The painting favors a minimal, two-dimensional structure; boundaries are fine, and forms are defined by clean, sharp, delicate lines, while fields of solid color precisely delineate volumes and background. Emptiness and visual reduction are not mere absences but substantive elements charged with emotional tension and silence. Through a carefully chosen palette — featuring saturated, refined application and rich, dense colors — the Artist creates an atmosphere of seemingly calm enchantment that conceals underlying psychological unease and tension.

The interplay of light and shadow stages the duality of human experience: the visible and the unconscious. The figures appear enigmatic, indecipherable, ambiguous, and unsettling, often veiled by a cloud of smoke. The scene — almost shamanic and elusive at first glance — disorients the viewer yet simultaneously conveys trust and hope.

“There are moments when the path grows dim, the air thickens with smoke, darkness erases our bearings, and fog blurs even the outline of the person beside us. In such conditions of obscurity and disorientation, the instinctive urge is to halt — to perceive the obstacle as a deprivation or an injustice of fate. Yet, it is precisely when the visible landscape fades that a different kind of vision awakens. When sight no longer suffices, a relationship — whether born of love or the act of helping—ceases to be a mere presence and transforms into a vital support structure.
In the apparent void created by uncertainty, the human bond becomes the soil where meaning takes root.Despite the hostile environment, authentic closeness and mutual care allow unexpected fruit to emerge—bringing to light a treasure that would have remained invisible in the full clarity of day. The treasure is never the absence of fog, but the discovery of what we are capable of creating and cherishing as we pass through it. In this process, an impediment ceases to be a mere hindrance and reveals its deeper nature: every obstacle is a benefit. Obstacles do not arrive to halt life, but to compel it to change form—to move beyond the surface and delve into the depths.
Fog and smoke force us to slow down, to listen, and to tune in to more intimate, subtle frequencies. They dampen background noise and compel us to seek out the essential.
They teach us that fragility is not the end of the road, but the fundamental condition for accessing true strength; that it is the very resistance of the soil that allows the seed to break open and give life to the plant. In the helping relationship and in love, the shared hardship thus transforms into a catalyst for change. The ordeal does not erase the value of the experience; on the contrary, it protects, matures, and enriches it, reminding us that the purest light is not the one that illuminates a path already paved, but the one we manage to kindle together within the night.” Rebecca Russo