SEATTLE, WA – The Glass Art Society (GAS) is pleased to announce the 2022 Saxe Emerging Artist Award recipients: Fumi Amano, Krista Israel, and Madeline Rile Smith. Each winner will receive the opportunity to present at the 2022 Annual GAS Conference, placement in an upcoming digital artist exhibition, an honorarium to support their artistic endeavors, and more.
Through a competitive jurying process, GAS recognizes emerging artists every year based on their promising talent with glass. Applicants—nominated by peers, academics, and curators—are evaluated by a professional panel of jurors. To better reflect their diverse community in glass, GAS increased the number of jurors for 2022; the panel included Anthony Amoako-Attah, Timothy Horn, Paul Marioni, Zesty Meyers, and Yoko Togashi. Out of 40 nominated artists, Fumi Amano, Krista Israel, and Madeline Rile Smith are receiving the 2022 Saxe Emerging Artist Award because of their innovation, unique concepts, and dedication to the medium of glass.
All interdisciplinary artists, each of our three winners use their work to explore the similarities between the unique properties of glass and their own minds and bodies. Seeking to address the aftermath of the current social and political climate surrounding the COVID pandemic, US-based Japanese artist Fumi Amano puts her identity at the center of her work by mending objects such as window frames and broken lamp shades. Using a broad range of techniques that juxtaposed a realistic style with elements of the surreal, Netherlands-based artist Krista Israel exposes the natural characteristics of glass as a way to address the needs of those around us. American artist Madeline Rile Smith uses glass as a “performative vehicle to consider notions of intimacy and embodiment,” exploring the parallels between the human body and the medium of glass.
This award, named after Dorothy & George Saxe, is made possible by the Saxe Emerging Artists Lecture Fund. The Saxes worked to build one of the most notable contemporary glass collections in the United States, and in 2015, the Emerging Artist Award was renamed in their honor by the Glass Art Society. When talking with Dorothy Saxe in 2020 about this program, she reflected that the award “gives young artists the opportunity to present their work at a conference – it gives [them] exposure… and people would be well to attend and hear the revolutionary ideas of these young artists.”
Join us in March as we launch the Saxe Emerging Artists online exhibition and digital catalog and again from May 18-21 at GAS Tacoma as our award winners showcase their work in featured lectures. GAS Executive Director, Brandi Clark, believes that “this will be one of the most exciting GAS conferences yet. GAS will be celebrating our 50th Anniversary, it is the United Nations’ International Year of Glass, and we will be able to gather together again after three long years! While celebrating the history of GAS, we will also be highlighting the reach and diversity that is the future of the glass community. Our Saxe Emerging Artists are a great reflection of that.” Along with exploring the past 50 years of glass, GAS Tacoma will explore what the next 50 years hold for making, collecting, and educating.
Visit glassart.org to learn more about this award, our 2022 winners, and Tacoma 2022.
DOWNLOAD IMAGES: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1urHZoRlSMzO2Mj3Lc0ftF4Dy41I2B0la?usp=sharing
ABOUT GLASS ART SOCIETY
The Glass Art Society (GAS) is an international, non-profit organization founded in 1971 whose mission is to connect, inspire, and empower all facets of the global glass community. The Society strives to stimulate communication among artists, educators, students, collectors, gallery and museum personnel, art critics, manufacturers, and all others interested in and involved with the production, technology, and aesthetics of glass. Our long-term vision is to create one unified glass community.
ABOUT FUMI AMANO
Fumi Amano was born in Aichi, Japan and first learned glassmaking as a traditional Japanese craft. She earned a BFA from Aichi University of Education (2008) and studied glass at the Toyama City Institute of Glass Art (2010). In 2013, Amano moved to the United States and earned an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (2017).
ABOUT KRISTA ISRAEL
Krista Israel graduated with honours at IKA Glassdepartment (BE) in 2013 and 2016. She participated in exhibitions in multiple countries within the European Union, in the United States, and China. Her work is selected for Coburg Glas Preis, 2022; nominated for the Dutch glass prize Bernadine de Neeve Prize, Association Friends of Modern Glas, 2021; received Stipend 2018, Association Friends of Modern Glass; was invited for ‘Originality & Ingenuity’ residency, Liling Ceramic Valley Museum, China, 2017; received the academic grant for Dutch glass artists by Glass Gallery Aventurijn, 2014; she designed/produced the collectors object Dutch Association Friends of Modern Glass, 2015.
ABOUT MADELINE RILE SMITH
Madeline Rile Smith is an artist specializing in glass with a focus on performance, video, and body-activated sculpture. Madeline’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Museum of Arts and Design, Toyama Glass Art Museum, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, and in New Glass Review 41 and 35. She earned an MFA at Rochester Institute of Technology, and a BFA from Tyler School of Art. A passionate educator, she has instructed glassworking in numerous institutions and is currently an adjunct professor of glass art at Salem Community College and Tyler School of Art.
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