GSTAAD.- On the occasion of the opening of the third edition of MAZE/Art Gstaad 2026, held on Thursday, February 19 at the Festival-Zelt and marked by strong attendance, the second edition of the MAZE/Art Awards F.P.Journe was presented in a particularly vibrant atmosphere.

Established to affirm MAZE’s commitment to artistic creation and to foster dialogue between institutions, galleries, and collectors, the MAZE/Art Awards F.P.Journe recognizes an artist whose practice reflects a singular vision and outstanding rigor.
The jury—composed of Maja Hoffmann (Founder and President of the LUMA Foundation), Stephanie Seidel (Head of Art after 1960, Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum Basel), and Tatyana Franck (President of L’Alliance New York)— awarded the prize to Sonia Gomes, represented by Mendes Wood DM, founded in São Paulo and now established in São Paulo, Brussels, New York, and Paris.

Born in Caetanópolis, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, Sonia Gomes has developed a singular sculptural practice using secondhand textiles and everyday materials—furniture, driftwood, and wire—which she knots, twists, stretches, suspends, and tensions into complex abstract forms. Each fabric, carrying intimate and collective histories, is transformed through patient acts of sewing, wrapping, balancing, and assembling, turning stitching into a form of drawing in space. Her sculptures, at once organic and dynamic, combine tension and slackness and convey a strong sense of corporeality informed by Brazilian popular culture.

By reusing fabrics already charged with lived experience, Gomes restores visibility to long-marginalized narratives—those of women, Afro-Brazilian communities, and countless anonymous individuals—while engaging broader questions of memory, transmission, and contemporary social and environmental imbalances. Describing her work as “black, feminine, and marginal,” she asserts a distinctly free and decolonial position within the international art landscape.

In keeping with MAZE’s mission to support the institutional visibility of the artists it presents, the awarded work will be proposed to the Kunstmuseum Basel, further strengthening the connection between the fair, its partners, and leading cultural institutions.

With this second edition of the MAZE/Art Awards F.P.Journe, MAZE reinforces its long-term commitment to accompanying artists beyond the temporal framework of the fair and to fostering sustained dialogue between the market and major institutions. A third presentation of the prize will take place shortly during TEFAF Maastricht, continuing this trajectory within one of the most prominent international art fair contexts.