Out of 38 nominated artists, Geoffrey Bowton, Scout Cartagena and Hoseok Youn were selected to receive the 2023 Saxe Emerging Artist Award because of their fresh and unique approaches to working with glass.
Explore the 2023 Saxe Emerging Artist virtual exhibition!
Geoffrey Bowton
ARTIST STATEMENT
During the longstanding wars throughout the Middle East, I served for six years in the United States Army deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. Since returning home from combat, I continually think about mental health and survival. I find myself seeking more information to understand the human experience around military deployments. Inspired by Lalage Snow’s article “We are not the Dead” which compared Scottish soldiers’ faces before, during, and after a combat experience, I processed my own feelings by making silhouette glass heads in a triptych format, depicting damage I feel happens over time throughout a combat experience.
Now, I am expanding that narrative by depicting post-traumatic stress in sequentially using glass storytelling as the vehicle for delivery. These glass vessels transport the viewer into a virtual space, inviting them to embrace the experiences of soldiers and bear witness to the human condition during unimaginable conflicts which leave behind the invisible wounds of war.
Augmenting his earlier career methods of metal fabrication and military service, Geoffrey R. Bowton informs his current studio practice by applying the investigation and illustration of his ideas. Combined with the fragility of glass, Geoffrey is creating work that embraces tension between these contradictory materials and multi-faceted experiences; to promote conversation about post-traumatic stress and mental health.
These skills, combined with creative mold making and pâte de verre casting, transform old dusty gear into visual landscapes of the soldier’s life. Geoffrey uses mixed media and the power of craft to supply insight, support, and representation of the military-veteran community.
Scout Cartagena
ARTIST STATEMENT
In my early 20’s, I was diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disorder that interrupted my life and made me a stranger to my own body. With each year, I lose parts of my memory and mobility, increasing the urgency to create work that’s tangible In the face of this. For only a few years I have used the physicality of glass, installation, and other sculptural mediums to communicate this crisis of identity, and to help me remember what I’m afraid I will lose with time. My work reflects the constant struggle of my identity as queer, Afro-Latinx, and non-able-bodied person through things like hot blowing bell jars that capture physical manifestations of mental illness, kiln casting locks of hair, and using printmaking to warp photographic documentation of the past. With my work, I hope to communicate a narrative for non-able-bodied people of color (POC) that will start action and talk of hope, resilience, and representation with able-bodied, non-Black communities.
Scout Cartagena was born in Maryland but lived abroad for many years, distorting what they call “Home” growing up. Throughout their work, Scout was inspired by medieval art and punk. Scout later experimented with sculpture after one glass class at Tyler School of Art and used it to make heirlooms that described themes of memory, being Afro-Latinx, and being disabled. Scout was selected as an Emerging Artist in Residence at Pilchuck (2022) and the Michelle Ortiz Fellowship (2021) and was nominated for the Windgate-Lamar Fellowship (2020). Scout lives in Philadelphia with their partner, usually taking pictures of their pets sleeping.
Hoseok Youn
ARTIST STATEMENT
My body of work is a series of figurative glass toys that depict fantastical creatures with weapons, armor, and organic forms based on characters from pop culture, constructed with Venetian traditional stemware components. This series of work is the reinterpretation of the relationship between the young generation and their fantasies of wealth and success. I am drawn to Venetian glass because of its quality, elaborate decorations, and mastery. These forms rely on thorough craftsmanship with intricate designs to mimic our generation’s desire to fulfill their fantasies of self-fulfillment, admiration, respect, and attention through luxury and consumption. For myself, toys have been the major materialistic consumption for my own desire and happiness. Toys and their heroic or villainous appearance speak to the childlike image of the young generation, reflecting their possessiveness and obsession with the fantasy of idealized life. Ultimately, this body of work is a critique of the young generation’s conspicuous materialism, decoratively fragile identities, and competition for wealth.
Hoseok Youn is a South Korean glass artist and educator specializing in glassblowing. He was born and raised in Seoul. Youn earned a B.F.A. degree in glass and ceramic at Namseoul University, Cheon Ahn, Korea and a M.F.A. degree in glass at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Illinois. Hoseok is a full time glassblowing instructor and lead glassblower at Belger Arts Center, Missouri. His work has been exhibited broadly and internationally in Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Pennsylvania, California, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Korea, China, and Italy.
Jurors
Tanda Francis
Tanda Francis is a Brooklyn based artist with a primary focus of creating monumental African presence in public and personal spaces. She is inspired by ancient customs and rituals as a significant means of understanding and addressing our contemporary condition. She uses her work to activate a dialog of universal origin which crosses cultural barriers.
Francis explores digital and traditional forms of art while working and exhibiting her art in solo and group exhibitions locally and internationally. Tanda Francis has created several site-specific monumental public art pieces including BIGGIE (2014), New York City; Everyone Breaks, Riverside Park, New York City (2015-2016); And We Breath (collaborative), Van Cortlandt Park, New York City (2015-2016); Take Me With You, Socrates Sculpture Park, New York City, (2017-2018); Adorn Me, Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn (2017-2018); RockIt Black Queensbridge Park, Long Island CIty, New York (2021). Her work was most recently on display at New York’s MAD Museum of Art and Design and the cover spread of New York Times Arts and Leisure.
Mathieu Grodet
Mathieu Grodet was born in Orleans, France where he first studied art and drawing at the Visual Art Institute of Orleans. In 1999, he discovered the medium of glass and began his career in this ancient art by training at several studios across France and Europe. He began learning flame work at CERFAV (the European Centre for Research and Training in Glass Art).
After many travels, Mathieu dropped his suitcases in Canada where he now applies the different techniques acquired over the years. His work includes Venetian style thin goblets, original enamel drawings on glass, murrini and various glass creations. With all his work, he attempts to bring the past of glass together with the present – the outside world inside. His work explores themes of contradiction, power, duality and the absurdity of life. Mathieu also lectures and teaches the techniques he has learned. His recent workshops, lectures and classes have included various cities in China, France, Canada and the United States.
His work is in private collections across Europe and North America and can be seen at the Corning Museum of Glass and the Art Institute of Chicago along with several galleries in Canada.
Jessica Jane Julius
Jessica Jane Julius, is an interdisciplinary artist who uses glass and mixed media to create installations, objects, imagery, and wearables that embody notions of classification, transformation, interconnectedness, perception, and materiality. Creating works that explore the anxieties and complexities of language through the lens of dyslexia, she attempts to take command of language; visual, verbal, and experimental, to create a tenuous network of creative exchange and correspondence. With a desire to create order, balance, and unity she believes that her gift of dyslexia gives her the ability to see the space in-between, to discover the undetected, and to connect the invisible.
Julius is Associate Professor, Program Head of Glass at Tyler School of Art and Architecture and co-founder of The Burnt Asphalt Family who produces collaborative participatory works. Her works have been exhibited widely, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Glass Tacoma, Traver Gallery, Heller Gallery, and the Museum of American Glass. Her work has been published in the Washington Post, Glass Quarterly Magazine, and New Glass Review. Julius is the recipient of the York Cultural Alliance grant and awarded residencies at The Creative Glass Center of America and the Museum of Glass. Currently she lives in Philadelphia with her partner and son.
Namita Gupta Wiggers
Namita Gupta Wiggers is a writer, educator, and curator based in Portland, OR. Wiggers serves as the founding director of the MA in Critical Craft Studies at Warren Wilson College, the first and only low-residency program focused on craft histories and theory. She co-founded Critical Craft Forum, an online and onsite platform for dialogue and exchange including projects such as annual College Art Association Conference sessions from 2009-2019. Wiggers served as curator and then chief curator and director of Museum of Contemporary Craft/PNCA from 2004–14. Prior experiences as a museum educator, design researcher, studio jeweler, and life as an American of South Asian heritage also shape her research and writing on craft and culture.