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Announcing the 2026 Arts Innovator Award Recipients
Published: June 9, 2026
Categories: Artists | Featured | Grants & Fellowships
Congratulations to Fumi Amano and Wynter Rhys!
We are proud to announce the recipients of the 2026 Arts Innovator Award (AIA), Fumi Amano and Wynter Rhys.
Created in partnership with The Dale and Leslie Chihuly Foundation, the Arts Innovator Award recognizes artists who are originating new work, experimenting with new ideas, taking risks, and pushing the boundaries of their fields. Both artists will receive $25,000 in recognition of innovation in their artistic practice.
We are grateful to The Dale and Leslie Chihuly Foundation for their visionary support of this award, one of the largest available to a Washington State artist of any discipline. To date, $805,000 has reached 37 artists since the beginning of this important partnership.
This year’s recipients, Fumi Amano and Wynter Rhys each create work that invites their audience to look inward and confront uncomfortable truths, while also being skillful technicians who push the boundaries of their mediums in bold, unexpected directions. Read on to learn more about our 2026 AIA recipients, panelists, and finalist cohort.
Fumi Amano portrait
Fumi Amano, Womb, 2025, 12’ x 12’ x 10’, old window frames, glass, woodFumi Amano (Snohomish County) is a Japanese artist based in Snohomish whose interdisciplinary practice explores materiality, identity, and community through sculpture, glass, installation, and public art. Drawing from Japanese craft traditions and her experience as an Asian female artist living in the United States, Amano investigates cultural perceptions of femininity, beauty, and belonging.
“Receiving the Arts Innovator Award means meaningful recognition of my journey as a Japanese artist living in the United States and of my efforts to challenge cultural stereotypes through material and installation-based work. This award encourages me to continue taking creative risks, expanding the possibilities of material, and creating public work that brings people together across cultural and social boundaries.”
–Fumi Amano
–Fumi Amano
Using materials such as glass, wood, rope, metal, and everyday objects, Amano creates works that encourage dialogue and connection across social and cultural boundaries. Her large-scale installations and public art projects emphasize collaboration and direct engagement with communities, transforming artwork into shared public experiences. Amano has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, AL and Toyama Glass Art Museum, Japan.
Wynter Rhys portrait
Wynter Rhys HATEFUL SHIT
Wynter Rhys (King County) is a Choctaw and disabled director, editor, writer, slam poet, and experimental musician from Seattle, WA. She has been storytelling through film as her primary medium for over 10 years, with an approach that blends history, culture, documentary, journalism, and song, often placing viewers as active participants to difficult truths that are rarely discussed. Her films have garnered international attention, winning awards worldwide at festivals and events such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nashville Film Festival, the National YoungArts Foundation, NFFTY, and beyond.
“For me, this award is a very public statement that says ‘this artist is worth taking a risk on, and the risks she takes are worth it, and necessary. Innovation can be lonely. This award reminds me that the ongoing steps towards innovation is what I’m meant to continue to do. The recognition from something like this is lifelong. It allows me continue to tell the stories that deserve to be heard, and would be a shame and a danger if they were forgotten. This award, to me, means artistic freedom.”
–Wynter Rhys
–Wynter Rhys
After being awarded the sole Frances Larkin McCommon Full-Tuition Scholarship to Savannah College of Art and Design, Rhys has since graduated with her Bachelors and now dedicates her ongoing artistic practice to BIPOC-centered documentaries and boundary-pushing art, like her latest autobiographical-inspired songscape and visual project HATEFUL SHIT, which utilizes all real arguments recorded from her own life. Intrigued by the terrible and wonderful things humans do to each other, Wynter inspects this process in every step of her multi-faceted work.
Wynter Rhys, Euphoria, Music Video Still, Red Epic Camera, 2019
Fumi Amano, Voice, 2017, 7’ x 10’ x 10’, old window frames, glass, wood
Fumi Amano, Where are you from?, 2021, 10’ x 15’ x 10’, rope, steel
Wynter Rhys, BTS directing, Turkan Najar, 2019Amano and Rhys were selected as awardees from a cohort of eight finalists by a multidisciplinary panel comprised of five artists from across the state. The remaining six finalists will each receive a $500 honorarium in recognition of their collective achievement and time they invested to participate. See the full lists of finalists and panelists below!
2026 Arts Innovator Award Finalist Cohort
Campana (Performing, King County)
James Pakootas (Media, Spokane County)
Jordan Alam (Literary, King County)
Naomi Macalalad Bragin & Milvia Pacheco Salvatierra (Performing, King County)
Priscilla Dobler Dzul (Visual, Pierce County)
Tamiko Nimura (Literary, Pierce County)
2026 Arts Innovator Award Panelists
Romson Regarde Bustillo (King County)
Kara Briggs (Snohomish County)
Jessica Bertrum Williams (Whitman County)
Gustavo Alonso (Walla Walla County)
Yuliya Bruk (King County)
Romson Regarde Bustillo (King County)
Kara Briggs (Snohomish County)
Jessica Bertrum Williams (Whitman County)
Gustavo Alonso (Walla Walla County)
Yuliya Bruk (King County)
Funding for this award is generously donated by the Dale and Leslie Chihuly Foundation.
2026 AiaArts Innovator AwardFumi AmanoGrant AnnouncementGrant RecipientWynter Rhys
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Image: Peggy Piacenza, 2024 Fellowship Recipient