Each year, the Glass Art Society conducts a rigorous and competitive jury process to select the latest emerging artists who have displayed excellence in glass. Along with the opportunity to share their work with a large audience of established artists, educators, peers, collectors, art historians, and critics, recipients of the Saxe Emerging Artist Award will receive a cash prize, a special lecture slot at the next GAS Conference, a digital catalog and media coverage in our social media channels, and more.
WHO TO NOMINATE
The GAS Board invites you to nominate ONE emerging artist who you believe meets criteria for this award (see below). Thank you for your assistance in helping us to select and showcase new and important glass talent!
Nominees for the Saxe Emerging Artist Award must:
- Be an artist whose work displays originality and creativity while expanding the field of glass
- Be an artist whose work displays skill and innovation, conceptually and/or technically.
- Be an artist dedicated to using glass in their creative practice and uses glass as their primary medium.
- This includes performance, video, or installations with glass.
- Have been working in glass for 12 years or less.
- This includes time spent enrolled in a degree-granting program and/or learning at a public access studio.
- Not currently be enrolled in a degree-granting education program.
- Not have presented at a GAS conference in the past 4 years (excluding panelists).
- This includes GAS conferences from Detroit 2023, Tacoma 2022, VIRTUAL 2021, and VIRTUAL 2020
- Be a current GAS Member OR willing to become a GAS Member.
HOW TO NOMINATE
Nominations closed at midnight (PDT) on October 15, 2023.
OUR SELECTION PROCESS
Nominated artists will be notified via email and asked to submit an application online through Submittable.com. Our jury will then review applications and select three candidates to present their work in a joint session at the 2024 Glass Art Society conference in Berlin, Germany.
MEET OUR JURORS
Mikkel Hammer Elming is the director of Glas – Museum of Glass Art in Ebeltoft, Denmark. He has a master’s degree in art history from Aarhus University and specializes in curation of contemporary art. He is a co-creator and former director of the Association for Contemporary Art and the contemporary art center Regelbau 411. At the same time, he has run an independent curatorial practice and was associated with Kunsthal Aarhus as a permanent curator. Elming has been the driving force in the major changes at the museum formerly known as Glasmuseet Ebeltoft. Now under the name Glas, the museum aims to be a leading institution within contemporary glass art internationally.
Dr. Jörg Garbrecht is the director of The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung. He studied art history at the University of St. Andrews and received his doctorate from Oxford University. He has worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Tate Modern, the National Museums in Berlin, the Nolde Foundation in Seebüll and Berlin, whose branch at the Gendarmenmarkt he established and directed, and the municipal Kunsthalle Mannheim. Most recently, he was senior curator at the Art and Nature Foundation of entrepreneur Susanne Klatten.
Garbrecht curates exhibitions ranging from Art Nouveau to contemporary art and is a guest speaker and author of numerous catalogs and art historical articles. He has diverse experience with new museum buildings, repositioning and dynamizing collections in terms of content, and sustainable destination management. Garbrecht believes that “good art is a sensual and intellectual supercharger that touches and moves us far beyond our immediate encounter in the exhibition space.” His upcoming exhibition on the smartphone will open at The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung’s BlackBox in April 2024.
Originally from Colombia and currently based in Mexico City where she runs her studio, Luisa Restrepo specializes in warm glass techniques, creating pieces that range from contemporary jewelry to collectible design and performative actions. Restrepo’s artistic practice is characterized by a fervent exploration of form, rhythm, and pattern to produce works that are both essential and ambiguous. She maintains an unwavering commitment to quality and meticulous attention to detail, resulting in finely crafted pieces that are aesthetically captivating as they are conceptually rich.
She attended Wolverhampton University, England, where she studied Three-Dimensional Design specializing in glass and did her Masters in Design Studies at CENTRO Diseño, Cine y Televisión University in Mexico City, México. She has been part of the North Lands Creative and CGSC residency programs and has taught in different schools including Pilchuck Glass School and Urban Glass. She was awarded first prize at The Glass Prize, Bullseye Glass Artist, UK; the Bogota Museum of Glass Biennale, Colombia; and by the Istituto Europeo di Design, Milan. Also, she has been finalist in the Monterrey Glass Museum Biennale, México; Emerge 2012, US; and Young Glass 2007, Denmark. In the past years she has been invited to take part of MACO Contemporary Art and Design fair, and Design Week, both in México. Her work has been showcased both nationally and internationally.
ABOUT THIS AWARD
The Saxe Emerging Artist Award, funded by the Saxe Emerging Artists Lecture Fund, is made possible by Dorothy and George Saxe. Over the course of their marriage, the Saxes built one of the premier contemporary glass collections found in the United States. Beginning their glass art collection in 1980, they supported artists, galleries, and institutions, and have played an immense role in elevating and increasing appreciation of glass art.
