132 New York Artists Receive $903,000 in Grants
The NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship program awards each recipient $8,000 in unrestricted cash.
The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) has awarded $903,000 to 132 artists across New York State in its joint fellowship program with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). The program gives unrestricted cash grants of $8,000 to artists working in five disciplines, which rotate every year.
This year's recognized disciplines included craft and sculpture; digital and electronic arts; nonfiction literature; poetry; and printmaking, drawing, and book arts. Selected from a pool of 3,985 applicants, the awarded artists are all based in New York and range in age from 25 to 90. The NYSCA/NYFA program also announced 16 finalists, who will receive NYFA services and unrestricted cash grants of $1,000.
Artists Melissa Joseph, Hakan Topal, Jeffrey Meris, and Sabri Sundos are among the many recipients and finalists.
Prevailing interests in cultural expression and the environment emerged across disciplines this year, from references to Korean burial traditions to sculptures compiled out of wood, salmon skin, and beeswax thread. In the digital and electronic arts category, fellows also mingled their artworks with explorations of AI and technological advancements, with panelists observing "increasingly blurred boundaries between traditional discipline categories" in a July 23 announcement.
The 2027 award cycle opens in the fall of 2026, with eligible proposals in: fiction; folk and traditional arts; interdisciplinary work; painting; and video and film.
Below is a list of all the fellows and finalists of the 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in the visual arts categories.
Craft/Sculpture Recipients
Paria Ahmadi (New York)
Patricia Encarnacion (Bronx)
julien feller (Essex)
Aaron Feltman (Ulster)
Sasha Fishman (Kings)
Danielle Gadus (Kings)
Covey Gong (New York)
Jesús Hilario-Reyes (Kings)
Alex Ito (Queens)
Paloma Izquierdo (Kings)
Emily Janowick (Queens)
Melissa Joseph (Kings)
Tamiko Kawata (New York)
Catherine Telford Keogh (New York)
Ellie Krakow (New York)
Megan Mi-Ai Lee (New York)
Chico MacMurtrie (Kings)
Jeffrey Meris (New York)
Kristyna and Marek Milde (Kings)
Anna Ting Möller (Kings)
Brian Oakes (Kings)
Saman & Sasan Oskouei (Queens)
Chelsey Pettyjohn (Kings)
Vartan Poghosian (Oneida)
Lina Puerta (New York)
lucía reissig (Kings)
Alvaro Villa (Westchester)
Patrice Renee Washington (Orange)
Anne Wu (Queens)
JAYOUNG YOON (Dutchess)
Craft/Sculpture Finalists
Rachel Dana (Kings)
courtney puckett (Dutchess)
Sabri Sundos (Kings)
Digital/Electronic Arts Recipients
Zain Alam (Kings)
Kabir Carter (Kings)
Leo Chang (Queens)
Simon Deschamps (Ulster)
alexa dexa (Suffolk)
Maria F. Izaguirre (Queens)
Umber Majeed (Kings)
MAYSUN (Kings)
Emmett Palaima (Kings)
Lisa Ann Schonberg (Kings)
rebecca shapass (Kings)
Samantha Simmons (Queens)
Yeseul Song (New York)
Hans Tammen (Kings)
Hakan Topal (Kings)
Frank WANG Yefeng (New York)
elekhlekha อีเหละเขละขละ (Kings)
Digital/Electronic Arts Finalists
ashley middleton (Ulster)
Stephanie Rothenberg (Erie)
Elia Vargas (Erie)
Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts Recipients
¡AGITPOP! Press (Johannah Herr & Cara Marsh Sheffler) (Kings)
Tatiana Arocha (Kings)
Andrew Brischler (Kings)
Melissa Dadourian (Ulster)
Marisol Diaz-Gordon (Bronx)
Andy Van Dinh (New York)
Oasa DuVerney (Kings)
Amaryllis R Flowers (Greene)
Linda M. Ganjian (Queens)
Luis A. Gutierrez (Queens)
Edgar Jerins (New York)
Leekyung Kang (Kings)
Kyung-Me (Queens)
Kakyoung Lee (Kings)
Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall (New York)
Anette Millington (Dutchess)
Kenneth Millington (Dutchess)
Azita Moradkhani (Queens)
Diana Schmertz (New York)
Jacquelyn Strycker (Kings)
Pedro Troncoso (Bronx)
Trevor Wilson (Delaware)
Chang Yuchen (Queens)
Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts Finalists
Kelli Anderson (Kings)
Zorawar Sidhu and Rob Swainston (New York)
Carol Wax (Westchester)
