Canberra Artist Annette Blair Wins 2026 FUSE Glass Prize

JamFactory and Canberra Glassworks have announced Annette Blair as the winner of the 2026 FUSE Glass Prize, awarding the non-acquisitive $20,000 cash prize for her piece Remnants of time – In Idleness, 2026. Established in 2016 and awarded biennially, the FUSE Glass Prize is Australasia’s richest prize for glass, open to artists across Australia and New Zealand and offering a platform for makers to push their work to new limits while focusing public attention on glass as a medium for contemporary artistic expression.

A glassmaker based in the Canberra region, Blair works between Canberra Glassworks and her independent studio in Burra, New South Wales. She has dedicated her practice to refining technical processes that celebrate the beauty and movement of glass while exploring the connections we hold to people, objects and place. With a broad skill set, she regularly works as a gaffer fabricating works for other artists and travels nationally and internationally to teach glassblowing and glass painting. Blair completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) at the Australian National University School of Art in 2004 before relocating to Tarntanya/Adelaide for the JamFactory Associate Program in the Glass Studio, returning to Canberra in 2008 to grow her practice.

Her work has been recognised through numerous awards and exhibitions, including finalist placements in the Ranamok Glass Prize, the Tom Malone Prize, the Still: National Still Life Prize and the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, and the 2022 Vicki Torr International Year of Glass Prize. She most recently completed a permanent commissioned work for Canberra Glassworks at the Australian War Memorial. The 2026 judges praised the ambition and execution of her work, noting the way its scale and technical sophistication are matched by a conceptual depth that draws viewers into reflections on nostalgia, impermanence and transformation.

In the emerging category, the David Henshall Emerging Artist Prize — comprising $5,000 cash and a professional development residency at JamFactory valued at a further $5,000 — was awarded to Tarntanya/Adelaide-based artist Isobel Waters for In the Absence of a Diagnosis, 2025. Waters’ practice is informed by her experience as a health care worker, where she engages with the physical and emotional complexities of the human body. Working across glassblowing, kiln forming, flameworking, cold working and assemblage, she creates emotive pieces — from intimate compositions to large-scale installations — that explore the fragility, strength and adaptability of the body, often inviting interactive or immersive viewing. The judges described the winning work as both technically ambitious and deeply considered, moving fluidly between conceptual inquiry and material exploration.

The works of twelve established and six emerging artists were selected as finalists by the 2026 judging panel: Tami Landis, Curator of Post-War and Contemporary Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass; Aimee Frodsham, Chief Executive Officer and Artistic Director of Canberra Glassworks; Dr Lee-Anne Hall, Curatorial Director at JamFactory; Tom Moore, glass artist and 2024 FUSE Glass Prize winner; and Brian Parkes, Chief Executive Officer at JamFactory.

The exhibition of finalists’ works shows at JamFactory until 5 July, before touring to the ANU School of Art & Design Gallery in Canberra from 18 August to 4 September 2026.