Wagner Foundation Announces 2026 Wagner Arts Fellows

Boston, MA, March 24, 2026 – Wagner Foundation, a Cambridge, MA-based foundation committed to investing in health equity, economic well-being, and the transformative power of art and culture, is pleased to announce the second cohort of the Wagner Arts Fellowship—an annual initiative designed to further advance the burgeoning arts community in the Greater Boston region. This year’s class is made up of three artists, Tomashi Jackson, Lucy Kim, and Yu-Wen Wu, who are each awarded $75,000 in unrestricted grants along with tailored professional services to support and deepen the impact of their individual practices.

Launched in 2025, the Wagner Arts Fellowship supports mid-career to established visual artists in the Greater Boston area who are deeply embedded in their communities and at a pivotal point in their artistic development. Committed to building healthier communities by advancing economic prosperity, health equity, and the arts and culture landscape, Wagner Foundation established this initiative in celebration of the transformative potential of Boston artists to inspire social change both locally and beyond.

Administered by United States Artists, the Fellowship not only offers unrestricted financial support but also specialized resources and career development opportunities designed to help artists expand the impact of their work. These resources include financial planning, career consulting, legal services, and more to directly address each Fellow’s diverse set of needs. “We are proud to continue investing in Boston’s ever-evolving creative community and to highlight the artists whose creative practices meaningfully shape the cultural legacy of this city,” said Charlotte Wagner, founder and president of Wagner Foundation. “In the second cycle of this initiative, we remain committed to amplifying artists’ contributions and sustaining the ecosystems that allow art to thrive, underscoring the essential role artists play in Boston and within the broader national cultural landscape.”

This year’s Fellowship class exemplifies the collaborative and civic spirit of Boston’s evolving arts scene and underscores the significant role artists play in shaping community and public life. From translating research and material experimentation into collective public discourse to working as educators and advocates for social equity and historical preservation, each fellow and their distinct practice offer insight into how Boston’s artists and their communities support one another and navigate changing social and creative realities.

The 2026 Wagner Arts Fellows are:

Tomashi Jackson—an interdisciplinary visual artist, whose vibrant works combine practices of painting, printmaking, video, photography, fiber, and sculpture with archival research in areas of public infrastructure policy. This work interrogates the intersection of languages between visual art and political histories of segregation, voting rights, education, transportation, labor, and housing in the U.S. and beyond.

Lucy Kim—an interdisciplinary artist who works across painting, sculpture, and biological media. In her hybrid works, she embraces distortion as a tool to deconstruct how we see what we see, and by extension, the complicated relationship between truth and sight.

Yu-Wen Wu—an interdisciplinary artist whose practice investigates the intersections of art, science, the natural world, and social and cultural issues. Her works include large-scale drawings, site-specific video installations, community-engaged practices, and public art. Yu-Wen’s works reflect her journey as an immigrant, exploring the complexities of global migration, displacement, and the nuances of identity. 

“Tomashi, Lucy, and Yu-Wen are formidable artists in their own rights, each working to strengthen and expand Greater Boston’s art community,” said Abigail Satinsky, Wagner Foundation senior program officer and curator of arts & culture. “Their practices are grounded in ingenuity, collaboration, and social engagement, which truly reflect the spirit of Boston. We are proud to continuously support artists whose work addresses societal issues and deepens our collective understanding of social change, which we believe is instrumental to our society’s collective health and well-being.”

In addition to unrestricted grants and tailored artist services, Fellows will also present their work in a group exhibition at the Wagner Gallery, the Foundation’s rotating exhibition space for contemporary art, on view in August through December 2026. Future cohorts of the Wagner Arts Fellowship will also be invited to showcase their work at the Gallery, providing further institutional support and expanding public engagement with the Fellow’s work. More information on the exhibition will be announced soon.

Wagner Arts Fellows are selected based on their demonstrated artistic vision, contributions to the advancement of their respective fields, dedication to the Greater Boston area, and engagement with social issues and civic impact. Artists are anonymously nominated by peers with strong connections to Boston’s arts community. Selected nominees are invited to apply, and a panel of leading arts professionals selects finalists, with final approval from Wagner Foundation. This year’s jurors included David Antonio Cruz, artist and professor; Joseph Zeal-Henry, spatial designer and urbanist, director of cultural planning (City of Boston), and assistant professor of architecture (Columbia GSAPP); Dina Deitsch, director and chief curator (Tufts University Art Galleries); and Lu Zhang, executive director (A Blade of Grass). Learn more about the Wagner Arts Fellowship and the 2026 cohort.

About the Wagner Arts Fellowship

The Wagner Arts Fellowship, founded and supported by Wagner Foundation and administered by United States Artists (USA), recognizes mid-career to established visual artists working in Greater Boston who have a studio and/or public practice that illuminates issues confronting society and transforms our understanding of social change. The fellowship annually awards three artists at a pivotal moment in their artistic trajectory with unrestricted grants of $75,000 each, as well as access to supplemental artist services.

About Wagner Foundation and Wagner Gallery

For more than two decades, Wagner Foundation has been committed to building healthier communities by investing in and accompanying organizations dedicated to health equity, economic wellbeing, and the transformative power of art and culture. Together with partners in the US and around the world, Wagner Foundation celebrates our shared humanity and strives for long-term solutions to some of our most complex global challenges.

Wagner Foundation believes that art and artists are essential to healthy communities. Through their Art & Culture program, they center artists as catalysts of change and community development through local and national investments in contemporary visual art exhibitions, publications, public art, and visual arts organizations at all scales. Wagner Foundation distributes more than 40 arts & culture focused grants annually. A highlight is the prestigious Wagner Arts Fellowship, the largest Boston-focused artist award that recognizes three mid-career to established Greater Boston visual artists, whose work illuminates societal challenges and transforms our understanding of social change.

Also housed within Wagner Foundation, Wagner Gallery is a dynamic exhibition space that showcases contemporary art to foster relationships, dialogue, and creative exploration, where artists can experiment and deepen their practices. Wagner Gallery commissions new artworks, showcases exhibitions at their dedicated gallery, and supports those exhibitions to travel.  Wagner Gallery is free and open to the public by appointment every Wednesday 12–5pm 485 Massachusetts Ave, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139

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