Pabst Blue Ribbon announced the three prize winners for its annual Art Can Contest. Since its inception in 2012, Pabst Blue Ribbon’s pioneering art can contest has placed original art on over 350 million cans and awarded over $100,000 to emerging artists.

This year’s contest saw an outpouring of creativity with over 4,200 entries. After whittling the list down to the top 25 entrants, fans voted on their favorites until ultimately the final three winners were selected. Entrants were received from more than 13 states and 18 cities in the top 25 alone, including Idaho, New York, Illinois, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, California, Missouri, Montana, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Hampshire, and Kansas.

Pabst Blue Ribbon selected Boise artist Ashley Dreyfus (@dreyfus.art) as the grand-prize winner of the ninth annual Art Can Contest. Ashley’s original art will decorate over 30 million cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, hitting shelves nationwide in the Fall. Additionally, she will receive a cash prize of $10,000 and be featured in leading arts and culture publication Juxtapoz.

Being home so much this year gave me a very different perspective on my life and my art. When I began imagining what I wanted to represent within this piece, I immediately thought about what I did with my time during quarantine. My favorite days were spent daydreaming, listening to music, imagining my goals, and remembering all the cool things I’ve done in my life. Then I realized how cool it would be to create a piece that summed up my life at home during the pandemic, and how I made light of it.

– Ashley Dreyfus

View the winning can design here.

While Ashley’s design will exclusively be featured on Pabst Blue Ribbon’s cans, 2nd and 3rd place runner-ups Holden Mesk (@holdenmesk) and Fantasia Graham (@justfanni) will receive prizes of $3,500 and $1,500, respectively.

This year, Pabst Blue Ribbon will further welcome its Art Can contestants into its creative community by creating capsule merchandise collections and commissioning work from all of the top 25 art can contest finalists.

Pabst Blue Ribbon again partnered with leading arts and culture publication Juxtapoz to help determine this year’s winners. For over 25 years, Juxtapoz has supported emerging artists and communities whose artwork may otherwise go unseen in the mainstream and commercial art world. Its vision of championing marginalized and overlooked artists is an ethos shared by Pabst Blue Ribbon.

The Art Can Contest is part of PBR’s 1000 Creators campaign, launched last year as the brand’s dedication to commissioning work from 1000 creators across the country in the wake of COVID-19. To date, Pabst Blue Ribbon has commissioned work from over 500 bartenders, designers, animators, dancers, singers, directors and launched additional programs including Blue Ribbon Studios, Straight From Your Local Bartender, and Workshop Wednesday.