Ms Majeske, formerly of New Jersey, won the overall award from more than 80 South Island artists and scooped the $5000 top prize at the awards ceremony in Wanaka on Tuesday.
Ms Majeske said she was delighted and grateful to win the award for the second time and the accolade gave her greater confidence.
She won the overall prize at the inaugural awards three years ago for Dream Girl (2008), a portrait of her niece, which was bought by a Queenstown collector.
There was much more support for artists in New Zealand than in the United States, she said.
"It's great and it was a big surprise, as I thought winners would be notified, but that was a really lovely thing to have happened."
Ms Majeske said she wanted to paint a traditional landscape but incorporating contemporary ideas relating to animal factory cruelty, farm practices and how people relate to animals. She was still dabbling with Deer Park the day before the painting was driven to Wanaka for the awards.
She said her style could go into the "blanket genre of pop surrealism", with her use of bright colours and distortion for effect to communicate ideas.
"The things going on in the painting will tell a story which will mean something else entirely to the viewer and these ideas are sometimes more entertaining than mine. The viewer completes the painting with their interpretation."
The Queenstown resident of seven years plans to use the prize money to frame about a dozen of her paintings and make prints of three to five of her works for selling.
Aspiring Art Award entries were judged by artist Helen Calder, of Christchurch, and Dunedin School of Art printmaking head Neil Emmerson.
