United States Artists, a Chicago-based nonprofit that focuses on direct-to-artist grants, has named the 63 artists that have won their 2022 fellowship awards, each of which comes with an unrestricted grant of $50,000. This year’s cohort is the largest in the organization’s history.
The winners come from 23 states and Puerto Rico. New York and Brooklyn are where the greatest share of winners are based, followed by Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago. This year, 20 percent of the awardees are Native and Indigenous artists, and 17 percent are disabled. Since the organization’s launch in 2006, it has awarded more than $36 million in direct support to over 750 artists.
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“Our work continues to illuminate the importance of elevating individual artists and cultural practitioners in communities across the country,” USA board chair Ed Henry said in a statement. “The breadth and depth of talent and the commitment of artists to their communities is remarkable.”
This year’s winners include some of today’s most important artists, among them Melissa Cody, who won in Craft; American Artist, who won in Media; and Olu Oguibe, Lonnie Holley, and Peter Williams, who all won in Visual Arts. JJJJJerome Ellis, who received a fellowship in the Music category, also won a 2022 Creative Capital Award for a project called ANTIPHONARY, a forthcoming, multifaceted project that will take various forms, including book, album, and live performance.
One of the country’s most closely watched architecture firms, SO – IL (Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg), received a fellowship in the Architecture & Design category. The firm is responsible for the recently opened Amant Foundation in Brooklyn and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis.
[The Shrem Museum of Art is one of the 25 best museum buildings of the past 100 years.]
Earlier this year, United States Artists named Judilee Reed as its next president and CEO, who told ARTnews at the time that she planned to continued the organization’s ongoing growth in supporting artists by “thinking about how to build from United States Artists’ position of strength in supporting artists across all stages of their careers and practices.”
In an email, Jordan Nassar, who won in the Craft category, said, “I think the most invaluable thing about this fellowship is that it prompts you to dream bigger—to imagine more freely, without feeling limited by production cost or financial prudency. It remains to be seen what those dreams will be, but I look forward to what this freedom will bring into my work.”
The full list of the 2022 USA Fellows follows below.
Architecture & Design
Germane Barnes
Miami, FL
Nina Cooke John
Montclair, NJ
Design Earth
Cambridge, MA
Dream The Combine (Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers)
Minneapolis, MN & Ithaca, NY
SO – IL (Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg)
Brooklyn, NY
Craft
Indira Allegra
Oakland, CA
Sharif Bey
Syracuse, NY
Melissa Cody
Long Beach, CA
Alison Croney Moses
Boston, MA
Jovencio de la Paz
Eugene, OR
Sharif Farrag
Los Angeles, CA
Jordan Nassar
New York, NY
Dance
luciana achugar
Brooklyn, NY
T. Ayo Alston
Chicago, IL
Jenn Freeman | Po’Chop
Chicago, IL
Rosy Simas
Mni Sota Makoce, MN
Pramila Vasudevan
St. Paul, MN
Viveca Vázquez
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Netta Yerushalmy
New York, NY
Wondertwins
Boston, MA
Film
Assia Boundaoui
Bridgeview, IL & Chicago, IL
Elegance Bratton
Baltimore, MD
Ekwa Msangi
Brooklyn, NY
Diane Paragas
Brooklyn, NY
Keisha Rae Witherspoon
Miami, FL
Media
American Artist
New York, NY
Salome Asega
New York, NY
Critical Design Lab
Nashville, TN, Troy, NY, & Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY)
Andy Slater
Berwyn, IL
Music
JJJJJerome Ellis
Virginia Beach, VA
Kenny Endo
Honolulu, HI
Jin Hi Kim
Bridgeport, CT
Laura Ortman
Brooklyn, NY
Jeff Parker
Altadena, CA
Qacung
Bethel, AK
Martha Redbone
Brooklyn, NY
Craig Taborn
Brooklyn, NY
Theater & Performance
Nataki Garrett
Ashland, OR
Marga Gomez
San Francisco, CA
Lars America Jan
Los Angeles, CA
Machine Dazzle
New York, NY
DeLanna Studi
Cherokee Nation, OK
Traditional Arts
César Castro
Los Angeles, CA
Peggie L Hartwell
Summerville, SC
Karen Ann Hoffman
Stevens Point, WI
Las Imaginistas
Rio Grande Delta Carrizo Comecrudo Territory Maiza, Brownsville, TX
Brett Ratliff
Lexington, KY
Marty Two Bulls Jr.
Rapid City, SD
Peter Williams
Sitka, AK
Visual Art
Andrea Carlson
Chicago, IL
Robert Andy Coombs
Miami, FL
Jorge González Santos
Borikén, Puerto Rico
Lonnie Holley
Atlanta, GA
Nicole Marroquin
Chicago, IL
Olu Oguibe
Vernon Rockville, CT
Jordan Weber
Cambridge, MA
Peter Williams
Wilmington, DE
Writing
Chen Chen
Waltham, MA
Kiese Laymon
Oxford, MS
Dawn Lundy Martin
Pittsburgh, PA
Leroy F. Moore Jr.
Los Angeles, CA
Emmy Pérez
McAllen, TX
Grace Talusan
Boston, MA