BY OBSERVER STAFF
AUBURN — Auburn-based visual artist Jeff Schmuki has been named the 2026 Alabama Fellow for Visual Arts through South Arts’ Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Visual Arts program.
The annual regional initiative awards $80,000 in unrestricted prizes to nine artists across the South Arts region. Each State Fellow receives a $5,000 cash prize and advances for consideration for the Southern Prize for Visual Arts, which includes an additional $25,000 award and a residency at the Hambidge Center. A finalist will receive an additional $10,000.
Established in 2017, the Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Visual Arts program supports artists working across a range of visual art disciplines. The program awards one fellow from each state in the South Arts region: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
“Every year, this cohort reminds us how much range exists within our region,” said Doug Shipman, president and CEO of South Arts. “These nine artists are working in glass, textile, video, printmaking and found materials, each showcasing a different way to hold onto memory, place and history through their practice. The Southern Prize gives their work a wider stage, and we’re honored to help showcase these visionaries.”
Schmuki’s work, “Extractive Figures,” explores environmental collapse through ceramic tableaus that place found porcelain figurines within unstable, biomorphic landscapes. According to his artist statement, the figures are recast as participants in and witnesses to worlds unraveling under systems of extraction and excess. His process includes excavated clay and glazes derived from mining waste, linking the physical materials of the work to the environmental and industrial histories they examine.
Schmuki’s ceramic practice includes installations, hydroponic community garden systems and interdisciplinary projects integrating robotics, sound and biological research. His work has been shaped in part by his displacement during Hurricane Katrina and explores themes of environmental vulnerability, adaptation and resilience.
Among his long-term projects is PlantBot Genetics, a collaborative initiative developed with biologists and local communities to address environmental stewardship, pollinator decline and the effects of industrial agriculture. The project was featured in the Marfa Dialogues at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts through an Art Works grant and was further developed during a residency at the American Academy in Rome.
Schmuki’s work is represented in major public collections, including the Smithsonian Institution, Incheon World Ceramic Center, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Shepparton Art Museum, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Arizona State University Ceramic Research Center and Missoula Art Museum. He has also received support from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, U.S. General Services Administration Art in Architecture Commission and Marfa Dialogues St. Louis Program Grant.
Several of Schmuki’s selected works use hand-built and wheel-thrown stoneware with found porcelain figurines, multi-fired with glazes containing mine tailings. Works listed for the fellowship include “CandyLand,” “Green Acres,” “The Wager,” “Angelus,” “Copper Couple,” “Two Identical Souls,” “Cottage Cores,” “Arduino Pair” and “AshLand.”
The State Fellows will be featured in a traveling group exhibition, which will be on display from Aug. 11 to Oct. 23 at the Western Carolina University Fine Art Museum at Bardo Arts Center in Cullowhee, North Carolina, before touring to additional locations across the region.
A national jury will select the Southern Prize winner and finalist in recognition of artistic excellence. Both awardees will be honored during an awards ceremony Oct. 8 at the Western Carolina University Fine Art Museum at Bardo Arts Center. The Southern Prize winner will receive the additional $25,000 cash prize and Hambidge Center residency, while the finalist will receive the additional $10,000 award.
The Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Visual Arts program is supported by the Windgate Foundation, the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, Southern First Bank and other individual donors. More information is available at southarts.org.
