MCAD–Jerome Foundation Fellowships For Early Career ArtistsThe Minneapolis College of Art and Design is the administrative home for this fellowship for early career Minnesota-based artists. The 2025/26 MCAD-Jerome Foundation Fellows for Early Career Artists and jurors have been announced. The 2026/27 MCAD-Jerome Fellowship application cycle will open in mid-July 2026. Image Since 1981, this fellowship program, funded by a grant from the Jerome Foundation, has artistically and critically advanced the careers of more than 200 visual artists.The artists considered for these fellowships may work in a variety of visual art media, including traditional and new media. The program is aimed at visual artists who can present their work in a gallery context. Eligible applicants must be in the early stages of their careers and have not yet attained professional acknowledgment commensurate with the quality of their work. MCAD and the Jerome Foundation welcome applications from artists representing diverse cultural perspectives.An independent jury of three arts professionals awards four grants of $10,000 each to early-career Minnesota artists. Fellowships may be used to purchase materials, cover the production costs of new artwork, and supplement living or travel costs. During the fellowship year, each artist receives three studio visits from professional critics, access to technical assistance, a culminating exhibition at the MCAD Gallery, a catalog with a critical essay on each artist's work, and the opportunity to partake in a public panel discussion.Contact Program Director Keisha Williams or Associate Fellowship Coordinator Melanie Pankau at gallery@mcad.edu or 612.874.3667 for more information.About the Jerome FoundationThe Jerome Foundation, founded in 1964 by artist and philanthropist Jerome Hill (1905-1972), honors his legacy through multi-year grants to support the creation, development, and presentation of new works by early career artists.The Foundation makes grants to vocational early career artists, and those nonprofit arts organizations that serve them, in all disciplines in the state of Minnesota and the five boroughs of New York City. 2024/25 MCAD–JeromeFellowship Exhibition Learn More Exhibition: January 16–March 7, 2026, Main Gallery Reception: Friday, January 23, 6:00–8:00 p.m. Panel Discussion: TBD, Moderated by writer Christina SchmidThe Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), on behalf of the Jerome Foundation, is excited to present new projects by the four recipients of the 2024/25 MCAD–Jerome Foundation Fellowships for Early Career Artists: Namir Fearce, Nik Nerburn, Amy Usdin, and Ger Xiong/Ntxawg Xyooj. Meet the 2025/26 FellowsOn behalf of the Jerome Foundation, Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) announces four recipients of the 2025/26 MCAD–Jerome Foundation Fellowships for Early Career Artists: CRICE, Tshab Her, Grover Hogan, and Suriya SamKhuth. The Jerome Foundation has supported this fellowship program since its inception in 1981.Artists were selected from 81 Minnesota-based applicants by arts professionals who included Brianna Hernández, Visual Artist and Director of Curation at Ma's House; Taylor Jasper, Susan and Rob White Assistant Curator, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center; and Kathy Liao, Kansas City, MO-based, Visual Artist and Arts Administrator at Mid-America Arts Alliance.This competitive fellowship provides $10,000, plus $1,000 in professional development funds to each recipient for the production of new work. In addition to being featured in a group exhibition at the MCAD Gallery, fellows have an opportunity to meet with visiting critics during the fellowship year, have an essay written about their work for the exhibition catalog, and participate in a public panel discussion. Tshab Her Tshab Naav Moob: Day 20, 6/22/2021, 2022 Tshab Her is a textile artist currently residing in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. She is a daughter of Hmong refugees who fled the “secret war” in Laos and was raised in the suburbs of Chicago. Within the context of immigration, displacement, war, statelessness, and colonial religion, Her’s work grapples with the tension of belonging as a second generation Hmong American woman searching for personal agency, cultural autonomy, and communal sensibility. She uses paaj ntaub, a traditional Hmong textile art, in particular the creation of story cloths, as a tool for storytelling, explorations of her identity and culture as a modern Hmong woman in America. She aims to echo the ways her ancestors preserved their history of resilience by sewing their stories and hopes into cloth, by sewing her own experiences of perseverance as she navigates statelessness on American soil. She has exhibited work at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Public Functionary, Chicago Art Department, Trout Museum of Art, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, 6018North, and has led arts programming in collaboration with the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Walker Art Center, Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, Franconia Sculpture Garden, Chicago Public Library, and Paper Lantern Project. She holds a BFA in studio arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Grover Hogan The Star Party (A Workshop on Failure), 2025 Grover Hogan is an American interdisciplinary artist, educator, and oracle from Houston, TX, currently based in Minneapolis, MN. Their work combines education, esoteric archetypes, and mixed media alchemy in order to examine the collective American Shadow Self and detangle our psychic knots. Hogan’s artistic practice spans experimental drawing and painting, social practice, critical theory, ritual making, and ruminating. They are most known for their self-portraiture and confessional-style art. Their work has been exhibited in Texas and Minnesota, including CLUES Gallery of St. Paul, Mardag Gallery at Franconia Sculpture Garden, Rondo Community Land Trust, and The Jung Center of Houston. Their art and writing have been featured in publications such as Teen Vogue, Houstonia Magazine, MN Women’s Press, and Burn Something Zine. As a muralist, they have worked with Forecast Public Art, Creatives after Curfew, The Bush Foundation, The Cedar Cultural Center, and Midtown Global Market, and their murals can be found throughout the Twin Cities. Hogan was an artist-in-residence at Public Functionary’s (PF) Studio 400 Incubator Program (‘23-’25) and has continued to remain a studio artist within PF since concluding their residency. In collaboration with Public Functionary, they were selected to be an artist-in-residence at Grand Marais Artist Colony (‘25). They received their BFA in Fine Arts with a minor in Teaching Art from Minneapolis College of Art and Design (’21), and they were baptized in a mega church swimming pool (‘13). Connor Rice (CRICE) St. Runner, 2024 Connor Rice (CRICE) is a Southside Minneapolis-based artist documenting pan-Africanist realities across space and time through the use of bold iconography and graphic elements inspired by hip-hop and nature. His works engenders viewers to reflect on the exploitation of the Black identity and consider their own personal experiences within a euro-centric society. His goal as an artist is to bridge the gap between established art scenes and under-represented communities of color. His work has been featured in shows at places like the Grafiska Sällskapet in Stockholm, the Chocolate Factory in Brooklyn, and the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles. Further supplementing his practice, he mentors Minneapolis youth through artist programs and curates shows at PLOT gallery located in George Floyd Square. Suriya SamKhuth Dream-Messenger, 2023 Suriya SamKhuth bridges the languages of serigraphy, photography, and collage into paper assemblages that trace and keep record of the knowledge embedded in trans and queer memory. Processes of collecting, listening to, writing on, unfolding, and reshaping fragments become gestures toward reflecting through ideas of origin, archives, transformation, and lineage. SamKhuth has participated in residencies and fellowships with the Emerging Curators Institute, the Southeast Asian Diaspora Project, the Chautauqua School of Art, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the Highpoint Center for Printmaking, and Public Functionary’s Studio 400 Incubator program. Most recently, she completed a yearlong Thomas J. Watson Fellowship where she immersed herself within the practices of trans artists, collectives, and archives in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands, Cambodia, and Thailand. Additional MCAD–Jerome Foundation Fellowship Information2025/26 MCAD–Jerome Fellowship Application Guidelines2024/25 MCAD–Jerome Fellowship Resource GuideMCAD Facilities Access InformationPast Recipients Gallery Visitor PolicyThe MCAD Gallery is open to the public the following hours:Monday–Friday: 9:00 a.m–7:00 p.m.Saturday: 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.All visitors must enter through the north (main) entrance, sign in at the welcome desk in the main lobby, and stay in designated gallery areas.Accessibility InformationThe gallery has limited padded and non-padded seating. Some artworks contain light, projections, sound, screens, and scent. The Main Gallery is on the first floor of the building, at the main entrance off Stevens Avenue and 25th Street. The Concourse Gallery is on the second floor and can be accessed via elevator or stairs. The building is equipped with wheelchair-accessible and gender-neutral bathrooms and accessible entrances from the main and parking lot entrances. MCAD is committed to providing students, faculty, staff, and visitors with disabilities equitable access to MCAD-sponsored programs and events. For more information or any disability accommodations, please contact MCAD Gallery staff at 612.874.3667 or gallery@mcad.edu.Transportation and ParkingThere is disability-accessible parking at two locations: the main entrance off Stevens Avenue and 25th Street and the MCAD parking lot off 26th Street and Second Avenue South. General event parking can be found in the MCAD parking lot off 26th Street and Second Avenue South, street parking along Stevens Avenue, or the Mia parking ramp.For more information on how to find us and where to park.