william and dorothy yeck award for young painters

Young Painters are invited to participate in an annual juried competition for the 2026 $10,000 William and Dorothy Yeck Award. The Yeck Award-winning artwork becomes part of the Miami University Painters of the 21st Century Collection.

Juror

2026: Saya Woolfalk, Artist, NY

Saya Woolfalk is a New York-based artist who uses science fiction and fantasy to re-imagine the world in multiple dimensions. With the multi-year projects No Place, The Empathics, and ChimaTEK, Woolfalk has created the world of the Empathics, a fictional race of women who are able to alter their genetic make-up and fuse with plants. With each body of work, Woolfalk continues to build the narrative of these women's lives and questions the utopian possibilities of cultural hybridity. Woolfalk has exhibited at museums, galleries, and alternative spaces throughout Asia, Europe and the United States including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2025); Currier Museum of Art, (2023); Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2019); Mead Museum of Art, (2017); Sheldon Museum of Art, 2016); Everson Museum of Art, (2016); Montclair Art Museum, (2012); the Chrysler Museum of Art, (2014); the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (2014); and group shows at the Studio Museum in Harlem; MoMA PS1; the Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Collections include the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Mead Art Museum, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Newark Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Art, and the Seattle Art Museum.