Art
Jewelry Forum Announces Agnes Larsson Winner Of 2010 Emerging Artist
Award
Susan Cummins,
Chair of the Art Jewelry Forum (AJF), and Susan Kempin, Award Program
Chair, are pleased to announce this year's Emerging Artist Award winner,
Agnes Larsson. Larsson was chosen from among 117 entries, from 38 countries.
Mill Valley, United States
05.11.2010-07.11.2010
The goal of the Emerging Artist Award is to acknowledge promise, innovation
and individuality in the work of emerging jewelers. The competition
is open to makers of art jewelry who have recently completed their professional
training and have not been a featured artist in a commercial gallery
or museum. Larsson will receive a $5,000 cash award. In addition, her
work will be featured by an AJF member gallery at the Sculptural Object
and Functional Art (SOFA) Expo in Chicago and in AJF ads, and she will
serve as a juror for next year's competition.
Jurors for
the 2010 competition were Namita Wiggers, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary
Craft, Portland, Oregon; Susan Beech, long-standing member of AJF and
collector of contemporary jewelry; and Sharon Massey, jeweler and recipient
of the AJF's 2009 Emerging Artist Award.
Criteria
used in the judging were originality, depth of concept and quality of
craftsmanship. Larsson used carbon and horse hair in the series of work
she submitted. She allows the material to lead the way through the working
process, drawing inspiration from thoughts about gravity, lightness
and heaviness, death, life, transparency and darkness, growth, decomposition
and transformation to show contrasts like fragility and strength, depth
and surface, darkness and light.
Susan Beech
commented, 'This body of work most exemplified the guidelines for judging:
originality, depth of concept and quality of craftsmanship. The use
of carbon and horsehair, original materials, work well together. The
first thought that came to mind when I looked at this body of work was
elegant.' Sharon Massey added, 'Agnes Larsson presents a cohesive body
of work that I found quite unusual and poetic. Her forms are simple,
emphasizing the texture and blackness of the carbon as well as the fragility
of the horsehair. Her artistic voice seemed the most authentic and unique.'