Students enrolled in BFA and MFA programs at VCUarts were well-represented among the winners of the 2020-21 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowships, alongside their faculty and alumni peers. Of the 26 artists who received a total of $146,000 in career funding, 17 had ties to VCUarts.
“The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship Program is proud to support student and professional artists working across the Commonwealth,” says museum director Alex Nyerges. “We offer one of the largest fellowship programs of its kind in the United States and recognize this effort as a core part of our mission.”
Undergraduate student fellows, who each received $4,000, include photography + film majors Tatyana Bailey, Emma Carlson and Nicolas Fernandez; communication arts major Erika Masis Laverde; painting + printmaking major Amuri Morris; first-year Art Foundation students Megan O’Casey and Zoe Pettit; sculpture + extended media major Sarah N. Smith; and graphic design major Elizabeth Yoo.
Graduate student fellows, who were each awarded $6,000, include craft/material studies MFA Katie Revilla and sculpture MFA Abed Elmajid Shalabi.
Professionals, which include VCUarts faculty and alumni, each won $8,000 and included current painting graduate student Paul Finch; photo alumni Emma Gould (BFA ’19) and David Riley (MFA ’19); communication arts professor Sterling Hundley; sculpture instructor and shop technician Abigail Lucien; and assistant professor and assistant chair of photography Jon-Phillip Sheridan.
Since 1940, The VMFA Fellowship Program has awarded more than $5.8 million to local artists.