The Wagner Foundation has awarded Tomashi Jackson, Lucy Kim, and Yu-Wen Wu its 2026 Arts Fellowships. These Boston-based artists will receive an unrestricted $75,000 each to put towards their practices, as well as tailored, professional support. Their work will be presented in a group exhibition at the Wagner Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts from August to December 2026.
The Wagner Arts Fellowship, launched in 2025, is awarded annually to three visual artists with practices that engage with social change and are based in the greater Boston area. This year’s trio of fellows are deeply embedded in the city’s art scene and cultural life, and are celebrated for their contributions the community. Multimedia artist Tomashi Jackson, based in Cambridge, works across painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, and textiles. She makes three-dimensional compositions that combine layered paper, embroidery, plastics, photo transfers, and other materials, which explore systemic injustice and abuse in communities of color. Institutional solo shows include presentations at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Parrish Art Museum, and the Neuberger Museum of Art, while notable group exhibitions include shows at the Phillips Collection, the Guggenheim Museum, and the High Museum of Art. Jackson is represented by Pilar Corrias and Night Gallery.
Korean-American interdisciplinary artist Lucy Kim makes work that fuses microbiology with painting and sculpture. She uses a wide range of materials including silicone rubbers, resins, and live bacterial cells to challenge how our perceptions are distorted by cultural backgrounds and assumptions. She is the recipient of the 2024 Howard Foundation fellowship in the emerging arts, as well as the 2022 Creative Capital Award. Her work has been shown at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Jessica Silverman Gallery, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is an associate professor of art at Boston University, and is represented by Praise Shadows.
Taiwan-born, Boston-based Yu-Wen Wu’s practice includes large-scale drawings and site-specific video installations that interrogate migration, identities, science, and the natural world. She was selected as the 2024 artist in residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and was awarded the James and Audrey Foster prize in 2023, which was accompanied by a solo exhibition at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art. Her work has been shown at the Harvard Art Museum, the Acropolis Museum, and the National Museum of American History.
“We are proud to continue investing in Boston’s ever-evolving creative community and to highlight artists whose creative practices meaningfully shape the cultural legacy of this city,” said Charlotte Wagner, the foundation’s president and founder, in a press statement. “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.”
Clarification: this article has been amended to better reflect Tomashi Jackson’s current gallery representation.
