Richmond, VA — The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has announced the 2025–26 recipients of its Visual Arts Fellowship awards. This year, 24 professional artists and graduate and undergraduate students have received awards — totaling nearly $160,000 — to further their artistic careers.
Established through a generous contribution made by the late John Lee Pratt of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1940, VMFA’s Visual Arts Fellowship Program marks its 85th anniversary this year. As a vital source of funding for the visual arts and art history, the museum has awarded more than $6 million in fellowship awards to Virginians since its inception.
“The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship Program is proud to support professional and student artists working across the Commonwealth,” said Director and CEO Alex Nyerges. “Each year, through one of the largest fellowship programs of its kind in the United States, we recognize and provide transformative financial resources and exhibition opportunities to help advance the artistic careers of talented Virginians. This effort is a core part of the museum’s mission.”
Recipients of VMFA’s Visual Arts Fellowship awards must be residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia and may use the money they receive as desired, including for education and studio investments.
Museum curators and working artists serve as jurors to select the award recipients. This year, Miranda Lash, the Ellen Bruss Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (Colorado), served as the professional-level juror. The graduate art history juror was Shawnya Harris, the Deputy Director of Curatorial and Academic Affairs and the Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art at the Georgia Museum of Art (Athens). Sara Woodbury, Curator of Art at the Barry Art Museum (Norfolk, Virginia), served as the juror for the graduate and undergraduate visual arts categories.
VMFA has awarded 12 professional-level fellowships of $8,000 each to the following artists:
- Sam Blanchard (Blacksburg), sculpture
- Zach Duer (Christiansburg), new and emerging media
- Julie Grosche (North Chesterfield), film and video
- HH Hiaasen (Richmond), mixed media
- Min-Haeng Kang (Richmond), crafts
- Jeffrey Kenney (Linden), painting
- Adele Yiseol Kenworthy (Vienna), new and emerging media
- Pedro Ledesma III (Arlington), photography
- Andrew Norris (Richmond), painting
- Benjamin Rinehardt (Richmond), film and video
- Eric Standley (Blacksburg), mixed media
- Paul Thulin-Jimenez (Richmond), photography
Five graduate students have been awarded $6,000 each:
- Erin Ehren (Richmond), sculpture, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Jolinna Li (Charlottesville), film and video, University of Virginia
- Alexis Torres Marroquín (Richmond), new and emerging media, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Nathaniel Newcomb (Richmond), crafts, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Lizzie Rivard (Charlottesville), art history, University of Virginia
Undergraduate fellowships of $4,000 each have been awarded to six students:
- Ashley Davis (New Kent), film and video, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Grace Heinzelmann (Vienna), new and emerging media, University of Virginia
- Theodore Mayberry (Norfolk), mixed media, Old Dominion University
- Kenneth Nguyen (Herndon), film and video, University of Virginia
- Sirena Pearl (Arlington), painting, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Connie Wang (Fairfax), painting, Virginia Commonwealth University
This year’s recipient of the Cy Twombly Graduate Fellowship award, supported by the McClintic Endowment, is Richmond resident Kevin Hopkins, who is studying painting at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Offered through the VMFA Statewide Program, Visual Arts Fellowship awards are still largely funded through the Pratt Endowment and the J. Warwick McClintic Jr. Fellowship Fund. In addition to providing financial awards to all recipients, VMFA exhibits works by past fellowship winners in VMFA’s Amuse Restaurant, Claiborne Robertson Room and Pauley Center Galleries, as well as at the Richmond International Airport. Several past and present fellowship recipients have also shown their work in the galleries of the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton and the Capital One Commons in Richmond.