UW–Madison alumnae J. Myska Lewis and Sandra Schoen have been awarded the 2026 Forward Art Prize from the Women Artists Forward Fund. The prize, which includes $10,000 in unrestricted funds, is awarded annually to two women visual artists in Dane County who demonstrate exceptional creativity and compelling potential in their work.

Winners are selected through an open, juried, competitive application process held each summer. Eighty-one artists applied this year, up from 73 applicants in 2025.

The jury, composed of local artists and art leaders, included Katie Hudnall, an associate professor in the School of Education’s Art Department who heads the woodworking and furniture program. Madison arts and culture administrator Karin Wolf, who was also on the jury, noted that the winners share an interest in “playing with structure and decomposition, as well as the ephemeral and the permanent, in an interesting way,” according to a Capital Times article. 

Lewis earned a BFA from UW–Milwaukee before receiving an MFA in printmaking from UW–Madison in 2015. She is currently a curator with UW–Madison’s Tandem Press.

“Winning the prize this year feels like such a valuable vote of confidence in my work, an acknowledgement of all the hard work I’ve been putting into my studio practice over the years, and encouragement to keep pushing it forward,” said Lewis on receiving the honor. “I’m so grateful to the Women Artists Forward Fund and the entire community of women artists here who are so supportive of each other.”

Lewis uses pattern within her artwork to design and remix complex compositions of natural elements such as fruits, florals, and insects, notes the Cap Times. 

“The layer on top sort of acts as camouflage over what’s beneath,” said Lewis. “Have you ever dreamt something so much you think it’s a memory? You’re like, ‘Wait a minute, am I actually remembering this right? What is fabricated and what is not?’”

“It’s really about flexibility in perception … There’s something mirrored or switched, or forms dissolve into other things.”

Schoen, who was also named a top prize recipient, expressed how grateful she was to receive the honor. 

“It’s still just too much, I can’t believe it,” she said. “I feel really grateful that my work was recognized as something that people wanted to see. That’s really recharging.” 

Schoen studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before earning her bachelor’s in art from UW–Madison with a certificate in art education in 1996. Her art uses intricate patterns and vibrant colors to represent buildings as more than architectural forms, notes the Cap Times. 

“I was really drawn to the geometry of buildings,” said Schoen. “Once I started drawing them just for fun in my sketchbook, I started thinking about them in new ways, as things other than buildings. They have an inside and they have an outside, and there could be a lot of psychological things that are attached to them, but they could also be like characters in a story, sharing an idea.”

Schoen also is a middle school art teacher in the McFarland School District.

Lewis and Schoen’s work will be on view alongside the work of other applicants as part of the “Women’s Work” exhibition taking place through Nov. 28 at Giant Jones Brewing Company in Madison. 

To learn more about Lewis and Schoen’s work and the Forward Art Prize, read the full article in the Cap Times.