Applications for the 2026 Visual Artist Showcase now open!
Launched to address the lack of clear pathways and accessible resources for emerging visual artists, the Visual Artist Showcase was created to help artists take the next step in their careers and continue pursuing their craft. In 2026, the program will award ten emerging visual artists $5,000 grants and the opportunity to showcase their work in a signature gallery space at Levitate Music & Arts Festival, as well as at partnered galleries throughout New England. Selected by a panel of artists, educators, curators, and arts executives, these grants are designed to fund residencies, education, retreats, or passion projects—helping artists create impactful work, share it widely, and build sustainable creative careers.
Emerging visual artists can apply by submitting their portfolio, and anyone may nominate an deserving artist to be considered using the form linked below
Submissions are reviewed by a panel of artists, educators, gallery curators, and arts executives, led by board member and artist Thomas Deininger.
Ten emerging visual artists are selected to receive $5,000 grants to support their creative practice.
Selected artists will showcase their work at the 2026 Levitate Music & Arts Festival and at partner galleries throughout New England.
Location: New Bedford MA
William is a figurative painter whose work excavates the Black male psyche through large-scale, emotionally charged canvases that have traveled from his debut gallery exhibition to museums and galleries across Detroit and London. A former commercial illustrator who returned to his true calling later in life, he brings a hard-won depth to his practice and is now at a pivotal moment of scaling a vision that was always meant to be seen.
Dominique is an artist who moves through the world as a quiet spectator, processing what others can’t bear to sit with and channeling it into work that brings difficult truths closer rather than pushing them away. Her deepest joy is watching strangers find their way to her work and linger there — connecting, feeling, and living around it in ways she observes from a distance with quiet wonder.
Location: South Shore MA
John is an artist and student whose practice moves fluidly between quiet, intuitive making and large-scale, heavily researched canvas work — treating every act of creation as a conversation with materials about what they want to become. Guided by curiosity and a belief that wonder can change the world, he finds in art the same necessity as dreaming, letting books, ideas, and close attention to place shape everything he sees.
Location: Rhode Island US
Gina is an artist who began creating as a means of social commentary and self-discovery, ultimately leaving behind a planned engineering career to attend RISD. She blends classical oil painting with traditional Korean minhwa iconography to explore themes of diaspora, girlhood, and Asian American identity.
Location: New Bedford, MA
Fallon is a New Bedford-based ceramic artist whose practice bridges hand-coiling and large-scale robotics to create tactile sculptures that reframe domestic objects as imperfect, memory-laden artifacts. Beyond her studio practice, she is a gallerist, mentor, and community advocate who has become a cornerstone of the local creative ecosystem
Location: Rockport MA
Morgan is a North Shore based painter whose layered, pour-based canvases capture the geological pulse of the coastal landscape. From her artist-led Rockport gallery on Bearskin Neck, she has created a space where art feels genuinely approachable — where strangers wander in off the street and leave slower, more open, and feeling something they didn’t expect.
Location: Boston MA
Quincey is a Boston and Utica-based fine art photographer working across installation and performance to explore identity and womanhood, drawing on both human representation and her childhood archive to create layered, interpretive work. Through her lens she claims space for the unnoticed and the hard-to-articulate, translating feeling into frame and finding in photography a way to understand both the world and herself.
Location: Contoocook NH
Graeme is a Maine-based furniture maker and sculptor who merges old-world craftsmanship with philosophical depth — drawing from Norse mythology, Taoist principles, and the belief that everything a person owns should be both useful and beautiful, built to last generations. Still building out his shop while supporting his family, he is at the threshold of a fully self-sustaining practice, guided by a quiet conviction that the things we make should carry love, meaning, and no harm.
Location: Providence RI
Karla is a Vermont-raised, South Shore-based painter whose work is shaped by a lifelong pull between lush green mountains and the rocky coastal landscapes she now calls home. Rooted in daily practice and a deep love for her community, she paints landscapes, still lifes, and the quiet beauty of everyday life.
Location: Boston MA
Jameel is a Boston-based painter whose large-scale works weave personal introspection with the vibrant energy of his community, moving fluidly between figurative and abstract forms in a way that commands a room. With a devoted Boston following and work held in collections from Beth Israel to Google, he is ready to be introduced to new audiences — and represents exactly the kind of artist whose visibility matters most right now.
Location: Providence RI
Steven is a Massachusetts-born interdisciplinary artist who uses humor, repetition, and material disruption to reclaim his identity as a gay man within traditional Portuguese culture, finding belonging through what he calls “beautiful disruptions.” Driven by a lifelong curiosity about human connection, he runs a research-based studio practice that asks how heritage can be celebrated without leaving anyone behind.
Offering community grants to support creators, mentors, and outdoorsmen tackling projects that inspire their communities to create freely and connect with nature.
Awarding visual artists and musicians more than $75,000 in grants and the opportunity to share their work in front of thousands at Levitate Music Festival
Supporting the next generation by helping kids in need access formative camp experiences rooted in self-expression, connection to nature, and community.
The Levitate Foundation cultivates a better future by creating and conserving access to music, art and the outdoors.
