Walid Raad Receives 2025 Trellis Art Fund Grant

Paula Cooper Gallery congratulates Walid Raad, a 2025 recipient of the Trellis Art Fund.

The Trellis Art Fund grants are conceived to help visual artists pursue their creative endeavors, inaugurated in 2024. Each year, 12 grant recipients will receive $100,000 distributed over a two-year period. Grant proceeds can be used for any purpose—without restriction or influence—for project-specific support or general professional needs.

Every year, a diverse group of arts professionals and artists from across the country will nominate candidates for the grant. These recommendations are kept anonymous. Nominated artists will then be invited to apply. A jury will thoroughly review each application and select the final grantees. In each award cycle, two grants will be reserved for artists with children under the age of 12. This designation recognizes the particular challenges faced by working parents at that stage of their lives.

Artforum annoucement:

The Trellis Art Fund has announced the twelve artists making up its 2025 Milestone Grant cohort. Each will receive an unrestricted grant of $100,000, disbursed in two installments over a two-year period. Established in 2024 and open to those living in or eligible to work in the United States, the award is meant to encourage artists in their practice. Several grants are earmarked for artists who are also caregivers to children, seniors, and other family members in need. Trellis will additionally supply the grantees with career-development assistance, including workshops, and in November will host a retreat in upstate New York for 2024 and 2025 Milestone grantees to foster community-building.

“While this year’s grantees vary greatly in their career stage, many mentioned how meaningful the grant is, not only as a financial boost but as affirmation and encouragement during this challenging economic and cultural moment,” said Trellis Art Fund director Emily Davidson in a statement. “We’re excited to see how these funds, and being in community with one another, might impact these grantees over the next two years and beyond.”

To arrive at this year’s cohort, the private art fund invited fifty-six artists and art world professionals to nominate artists to apply for the award, garnering eighty-one submissions from artists working across a variety of media and disciplines. Those making up the original applicant pool represented nineteen states and Puerto Rico, with roughly 72 percent self-identifying as artists of color, and 37 percent as LGBTQIA+. The winners, chosen by an anonymous five-person panel, range in age from thirty-eight to eighty-two and were selected based on their demonstrated commitment to their respective practices, their unique contributions to their fields, and the consistently high quality of their work.

A full list of grantees is below.

Willie Birch, New Orleans

Julie Buffalohead,* St. Paul, MN

Nao Bustamante, Los Angeles

william cordova,* Miami

Sofía Gallisá Muriente, San Juan, PR

Harmony Hammond, Gallisteo, NM

Maren Hassinger, New York

Guadalupe Maravilla, New York

Tuan Andrew Nguyen,* Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh City

Walid Raad, Medusa, NY

Amanda Ross-Ho,* Los Angeles

Diana Thater, Los Angeles

* Trellis Art Fund Caregiver grantee