SEATTLE, WA – The Glass Art Society (GAS) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 SAXE Emerging Artists Award: Gracia Nash, Joshua Kerley, and Nate Ricciuto. The three winners receive the opportunity to present at the annual GAS Conference, recognition in a digital artist catalogue, and an honorarium to support their artistic endeavors.
Through a competitive jurying process, GAS recognizes emerging artists every year based on their promising talent with glass. Applicants, nominated by academics and curators, are evaluated by a professional panel of jurors. This year’s jurors were Maja Heuer, founder of “The Glass Factory” in Boda, Sweden; Shari Mendelson, established New York-based sculptor; and Ryoji Shibuya, director of the Toyoma Glass Art Museum in Japan. Not currently enrolled in a training or education program, emerging artists have never presented at a Glass Art Society Conference. This year, Gracia Nash, Joshua Kerley, and Nate Ricciuto were selected out of 24 nominated artists to receive the 2020 SAXE Emerging Artist Award because of their fresh and unique approaches to working with glass.
Based in Rochester, New York, Gracia Nash explores themes of the body, perception, and “the transience of identity” through her glass textiles, sculptures, performances, and multi-media artworks. Utilizing an extensive range of kiln-forming techniques, London-based Joshua Kerley experiments and produces textures, patterns, and colors that are “inherently un-glass-like.” Striving for “the odd space between technology and fantasy,” Nate Ricciuto’s work incorporates design, architecture, and craft to contextualize glass within a broad and innovative approach to making.
At the 49th annual Glass Art Society Conference in Småland, Sweden, these artists will have the opportunity to introduce themselves and their work to a large audience of artists, academics, educators, collectors, critics, and peers. A digital artist catalogue is also published to increase visibility for award winners.
This award is made possible by the Saxe Emerging Artists Lecture Fund and is named after Dorothy & George Saxe. 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 about this year’s 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.”
Learn more about this award and our 2020 winners by downloading the artist catalogue. Then, join us in Sweden for the 2020 Glass Art Society Conference and hear from the SAXE Emerging Artist Award Winners during their featured presentation.
ARTIST CATALOGUE LINK: https://issuu.com/
ABOUT GLASS ART SOCIETY
The Glass Art Society (GAS) is an international non-profit organization founded in 1971 whose purpose is to encourage excellence, advance education, promote the appreciation and development of the glass arts, and to support the worldwide community of artists who work with glass. 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. We are dedicated to creating greater public awareness and appreciation of the glass arts worldwide.
ABOUT GRACIA NASH
Gracia Nash is a glass, performance, and multi-media artist based in Rochester, New York. She graduated from Alfred University in 2014 with a BFA and recently completed her MFA in Glass from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work explores glass textiles, skin, the body, identity, and perception. Nash utilizes glass and the body in performative work realized in sculpture, installation, video, and photography. She has shown in various exhibitions around the US, Norway, and Japan, taught in Latvia and the US, and held artist residencies at Pilchuck Glass School and in Japan. Nash is currently an Adjunct Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology.
ABOUT JOSHUA KERLEY
Joshua is a London-based artist, designer, and kiln-glass specialist, whose practice is characterized by an experimental and progressive engagement with materials and processes. Joshua received a BA in Contemporary Crafts at Falmouth University and received his MA in Ceramics & Glass from the Royal College of Art in 2019. Joshua has exhibited internationally and won awards including the Gold Academic Award at Emerge 2018 and the Tiffany & Co. X Outset Studiomakers Prize. Joshua has taught at Falmouth University, City & Guilds of London Art School and currently holds the position of glass lecturer at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
ABOUT NATE RICCIUTO
Nate Ricciuto’s work envisions design, architecture, and craft as existing in the odd space between technology and fantasy. He has exhibited at the Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY), S12 Galleri (Bergen, Norway), and the Museum of American Glass (Millville, NJ). He holds a BFA from Ohio State University and an MFA from Tyler School of Art. Nate has been an Emerging Artist in Residence at Pilchuck Glass School and a Creative Glass Center of America Fellow. He is the Glass Program Coordinator at Columbus College of Art and Design, and a Visiting Lecturer at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH.
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