Lynchburg, VA, US—Art Jewelry Forum (AJF) is pleased to announce the five finalists for the 2026 Young Artist Award. They are, in alphabetical order:
- Corrina Goutos (US/Germany)
- Benedict Haener (Switzerland)
- Steven KP (US)
- Marie-Caroline Locquet (France)
- Zhipeng Wang (China)
The jewelry artists will be presented to the audience on the main stage of the Internationale Handwerksmesse on the afternoon of Saturday, March 7, 2026. At that time, AJF will also reveal the winner.
The finalists will all exhibit their work at PLATINA during the annual international Handwerk & Design fair in Munich, held this year March 4–8, 2026. The winner and finalists will be interviewed on AJF’s website over the next few months. We look forward to sharing more about these talented artists with you.
Through the Young Artist Award, Art Jewelry Forum supports new and exciting work that will inspire future developments in the field. The prize is given every two years to acknowledge promise, innovation, and individuality in the work of emerging jewelry artists aged 35 and younger. The competition attracted more than 60 applicants from a number of countries. The submissions were judged on originality, depth of concept, continuity of design, and quality of craftsmanship.
The jury consisted of Bryan Parnham (from the US), Thereza Pedrosa (Italy and Netherlands), and Jimena Ríos (Argentina). Parnham, an artist and jeweler, won the 2024 AJF Young Artist Award. Pedrosa is an art historian, independent curator, author, and gallery owner with extensive international experience in contemporary art and jewelry. And Ríos founded Taller Eloi, a jewelry school in Buenos Aires. She works as an educator, curator, and editor.
The winner receives an unrestricted cash prize of $7,500, and the finalists each receive $1,000. “We encourage every eligible artist to apply,” states AJF Board Chair Marta Costa Reis. ”Even if you are not one of the finalists, it is an opportunity to present your work to relevant people in the field. It is a great pleasure for AJF to be able to offer this award, thanks to our very generous supporters.” This year marks the fourth cycle in a row that Karen and Michael Rotenberg, whose collection focuses on the innovative use of alternative materials by emerging talent and mid-career artists, have funded the prize. AJF
AJF thanks AJF Board member Sofia Björkman, the owner of AJF member gallery PLATINA, for showcasing the work of the winner and finalists in her booth during the fair. “It means a lot for young artists to receive recognition. Therefore, the AJF Young Artist Award is significant,” states Björkman. “I know that it also means a lot to have the opportunity to show work to a big audience. In Munich, visitors come from all over the world. Here we make connections and build networks essential for reaching an international audience. I am happy to present and support the finalists in Platina’s booth.”
Corrina Goutos (US/Germany)
2013 BFA in jewelry and objects, Savannah College of Art and Design
The wearable, holdable series The BlossomVerse imagines the embedded agency of our tech implants, which seemingly overnight became extensions of our own vital senses, profiting in a symbiotic exchange. Fueled by human vitality as they attempt a technojailbreak. Just centimeters from their familiar terrain in our ears, on our necklines and moist palms, we witness these speculative iOS mutations emerging from their cocoons. Super seed pods appear to be germinating, while ear buds burst into EarBlossoms.
In this series, I invited entropy into my process—quieting my own voice to amplify those of nonhuman agents. On my bench, broken porcelain figures and e-waste begin to converse: shapes mirror one another, voids attract their perfect counterpart, like AirPods snapping into their case. iOS aesthetic evolves, breaching categorization as craft, design, or art. In their construction, I repurposed iOS components and took inspiration from museum armatures of reconstructed artifacts. —Corrina Goutos
Juror comment
Crisp white digital documentation in this portfolio is pitch perfect for expressing the aesthetic of an imagined semi organic iOS mutation. Involving this formal element of contemporary art/jewelry documentation insinuates that the mutation is not entirely imagined, but already among us, breeding in the void between flesh and silicone. —Bryan Parnham
Benedict Haener (Switzerland)
2023 BFA in XS jewelry, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
My works captivate with technical sophistication, playfulness, and the irritating familiarity of seemingly familiar everyday objects. The works are wearable. They are at the same time status symbol, pro- and anti- statements. Thematically, I defy familiar conventions with irony and wit. I question values and construct new qualities using surprising techniques and processes. —Benedict Haener
Juror comment
Innovative and masterful in its use of materials and techniques, Benedict Haener’s work combines contemporary themes with notable depth, presented with an almost playful sensibility. Particularly compelling is the way it engages multiple senses, creating a perceptual experience that extends beyond the purely visual. —Thereza Pedrosa
Steven KP (US)
2020 MFA in jewelry and metalsmithing, Rhode Island School of Design
My work explores connection, loss, and continuity through wood and metal—materials that hold memory and invite care. Rooted in my family’s experience of displacement and carpentry, making becomes both inheritance and preservation. I think of each carved form and knot as a speculative heirloom: a haptic device reconciling what has been severed, proposing new modes of care, of remembering, and of connection. Informed by queer ecologies and intergenerational care, I use salvaged hardwoods and jewelry’s relational power to make physical the often-overlooked entanglements between body, history, and material.
Through carving, wearing, and tending, these pieces resist punctuation and lean towards a practiced tenderness for survival. My work embraces jewelry as a living site of re-membering—where matter, memory, and touch converge toward collective repair. —Steven KP
Juror comment
Exceedingly integrated concept and execution. Craftsmanship, poetics, and presentation are neatly done up in a bow. These are tender and touching timbers. —Bryan Parnham
Marie-Caroline Locquet (France)
2021 MFA in contemporary jewelry, L’École Nationale Supérieure d’Art et de Design de Limoges
I grew up in the north of France where I felt the weight of self-demonstration and the camouflage of social affiliations through adornment at an early age. Thus, it is a conceptual interest that led me to jewelry, considering it more as a subject for study than from an aesthetic affinity.
Each piece of my work redefines the status of jewelry, considering it less as a showcase object (of wealth, power, etc.) and more as a confrontation with a high disruptive potential in public space. It’s not about seduction or representation, it’s about disturbance.
The materials, pushed to their extreme limits, bare themselves and reveal their true nature through forms that evoke both desire and death. Whether defensive weapons or restraint devices, each piece offers a unique wearing experience that explores our shared fragility. They pose a challenge to all who observe them, constantly maintaining the tension between social discomfort and the temptation of embrace. —Marie-Caroline Locquet
Juror comment
The work contributes meaningfully to the field of contemporary jewelry, both materially and formally. The statements are coherent with the pieces, and the chosen format actively challenges the viewer. I had the opportunity to see the applicant’s work [and] have continued to follow their career over time. I particularly value the professionalism and discretion with which this practice has been developed. —Jimena Ríos
Zhipeng Wang (China)
2024 MFA in jewelry, Academy of Fine Arts Munich
“Stone gambling” is a unique cultural phenomenon within Chinese jade culture that has consistently captivated jade enthusiasts due to its dramatic and unpredictable nature, epitomized by the saying “One cut to poverty, one cut to wealth.”
In my Stone Gambling series, I collected discarded jade fragments from shop corners, jade mystery boxes, and pieces gifted by friends. By artfully combining flawed, cracked, and rough jade with gold and pearls, I aim to challenge and question the standards of traditional jade appreciation. The work questions the market’s near-obsessive pursuit of high-quality “ice” and “emerald-green” jade, and the price distortions resulting from this phenomenon. —Zhipeng Wang
Juror comment
Distinctive in both concept and material use, Zhipeng Wang’s work stands out for its refined minimalism and carefully balanced composition. The thoughtful combination of jade fragments with precious materials is particularly compelling, prompting a reflection on value, chance, and perception. The reference to the culture of “stone gambling” introduces an intriguing layer, inviting a reconsideration of how rarity, expectation, and meaning are assigned to materials. —Thereza Pedrosa
Contact: Nathalie Mornu
Email: nathalie (at) artjewelryforum (dot) org
About the Young Artist Award
The biennial AJF Young Artist Award recognizes new and exciting work that will direct the future development of art jewelry. The international 2024 competition was open to makers of wearable art jewelry aged 35 and under who were not currently enrolled in a professional training program. Submitted works must have been unsupervised and not submitted for a BFA or MFA show. They must have been completed within the previous two years.
About AJF
Art Jewelry Forum is a nonprofit organization spreading awareness and increasing appreciation of art jewelry worldwide since 1997. Its diverse community of artists, collectors, critics, educators, galleries, historians, makers, and writers is united by a passion for art jewelry. AJF advocates for art jewelry through an ambitious agenda of education, conversation, and financial support. It commissions critical writing that sets the standard for excellence in the field and publishes artjewelryforum.org, an internet resource for original content on art jewelry.
AJF does not discriminate based on age, ancestry, disability, family status, gender identity or expression, marital status, military status, national origin, race or color, religion or creed, sex or sexual orientation, or for any other reason.
The opinions stated here do not necessarily express those of AJF.
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