Eleven VCUarts students, alumni and faculty artists were awarded 2026-27 Visual Arts Fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA).
The VMFA awarded a total of $154,000 in fellowships, ranging from $2,000 for a half-year undergraduate fellowship and $4,000 for a full year to $6,000 for graduate students and $8,000 for professional-level artists.
VCUarts was well-represented with recipients across disciplines:
- Jordan Bruner, painting
- Riley Goodman, photography
- Kathleen Kennedy, crafts
- Katy Layman, painting
- Eva McMullan, printmaking
- Sirena Pearl, painting
- Elizabth Schweizer, crafts
- Manavi Singh, photography
- Thomas Smith, photography
- Lauren Thorson, department chair and associate professor of graphic design, drawing
- Sasha Waters, professor of photography and film, film and video
Graduate student Sirena Pearl is also the recipient of the Cy Twombly Graduate Fellowship, supported by the McClintic Endowment.
Museum curators and working artists served as jurors to select the award recipients. This year, Jamillah James, the Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (Illinois), served as the professional-level juror. Kelvin Parnell, the Endowed Assistant Professor in Arts of the Americas at the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville), served as the graduate art history juror. Bernadette Moore, the Director of Exhibitions and Marketing at Piedmont Arts (Martinsville, Virginia), served as the juror for the graduate and undergraduate visual arts categories.
Now in its 86th year, the VMFA’s Visual Arts Fellowship Program was established through a generous contribution made by John Lee Pratt of Fredericksburg, Virginia. A vital source of funding for visual arts and art history in the Commonwealth, the museum has awarded more than $6.5 million in fellowship awards to Virginians since its inception.
