Artists: Program Awards

Between 1986 and 2023, NPN provided $42 Million in direct support to over 4,000 artist projects. This page presents selected grants and subsidies awarded from 1986–2023 across eight of our key program funds, as well as recent and current programs with links to detailed award announcements.

Artist Engagement Fund

Supports artist fees for live performance, public exchange, and community engagement of new artistic work. Learn more about the Artist Engagement Fund

Creation Fund

Phase I of a fund that supports the creation of new artistic work. Learn more about the Creation Fund

2023

A female dancer with braided hair and wearing a floral-print dress is mid-step, ready to clap her hands and stomp her left foot, smiling as she takes a tap solo in front of a multiracial company of dancers and musicians. All are dressed in colorful clothes, in vibrant orange lighting with a pink triangle and yellow circle in the background, evoking a festive, carnival-like atmosphere.

2022

2021 Spring

2020 Spring

Onye Ozuzu, wearing white flowing clothes, dances outdoors in front of a crowd

2020 Fall

2019

Photo of “Less Then Red, More Than Violet” courtesy of 2019 Creation Fund artists Tim Smith Stewart and Jeffrey Azevedo.

2018

2009–2019

Development Fund

Phase II of a fund that adds additional development support for new artistic work. Learn more about the Development Fund

2024 Spring

Image of Kate ( a white woman with brown hair) and Kayla (a Black woman with long locs) are squatting and looking at a computer. There is handwritten journal text overlaid on the left-side of the photo.

2023 Spring

Two Latina women dancing in a farm in Half Moon Bay California, arms extended out to the sides holding sticks, torsos facing front and legs wide twisted one over the other. Both are medium-skinned, wearing blue plaid shirts, and folkloric skirts that billow outwards following their movement. One skirt is purple, the other white.

2023 Fall

2022 Spring

Two figures in the middle-distance in a desert landscape, with mountains in the far background and water on the ground reflecting a bright blue sky. They are dressed in Afro-futurist costumes and each pull on a white rope, as in the child’s game “tug of war.”

2022 Fall

A medium light-skinned African American woman mid-movement dancing in front of a large rustic gray metal panel attached to a concrete wall. Her knees bent in a slight squatting position with arms in a stirring motion crossing in front of the torso at the hands. She is wearing a white knee-length dress that has bows tied at the tops of the shoulders, a white waist belt tied in a bow and white flat string-up sneakers.

2021 Spring

A medium-light skinned woman with dark eyes and hair wearing a white top looks upward through green leaves, shadows, and dark pink light. Her face is in focus and partly in shadows, while leaves around her face are out of focus. The background is black.

2021 Fall

2020 Spring

'Cleopatra Boy' by A Host of People

2020 Fall

2019 Fall

Marc David Pinate (“Antigone at the Border”). Photo credit: Kelly Presnell / Arizona Daily Star

Documentation & Storytelling Fund

Supports artists’ ability to document, promote, and share their work, ideas, and selves. Learn more about the Documentation & Storytelling Fund

2024

A dark-skinned woman and man, husband and wife, sit on a rustic church pew in front of a wall painted a vibrant red on the top half, and covered with forest green corrugated tin at the bottom. Above them, a white, hand-painted sign with green and black letters reads, “Welcome to Foxfire Ranch.” Her legs are crossed and she wears a blue shirt and jeans, her elbow rests atop the pew, her hand behind her head. He wears a green baseball cap with Mississippi on it in white lettering and a heather gray t-shirt with the Foxfire Ranch logo.

2023

A Latin woman, medium-skinned, seated in a chair in front of a microphone. In the back a big screen, projecting a mid-age Latin woman with a melancholic face.

2022

8 artists of Pan-Asian descent are gathered on a small platform in front of the audience. The performers are sitting and standing. They wear casual clothes and are talking to one another. One person plays a guitar, and one person is huddled in a corner by a suitcase.

2021

2020 Spring

Photo of "this is now, and now, and now" by cakeface

2020 Fall

Southern Artists for Social Change

Provides project grants to artists and culture bearers of color living, working, and engaging in social change in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Learn more about Southern Artists for Social Change

2024 Cohort 4

The black and white photo depicts a man with dark skin, an eyepatch, and a pirate hat playing a cowbell. He and several onlookers look to their left with surprise and delight at the camera and a man with dark skin wearing a T-shirt with the Cuban flag.

2023 Cohort 3

Painting of a Black girl floating in a bright blue sky with bare feet, jeans, and a white tank top decorated with a rose on the heart side of her body. She floats with her legs together and her arms bent at the elbow and her palms facing up so she appears to be offering us something or meditating. Her double-bunned hair is surrounded by a halo of fists of varying skin tones. This halo is elaborate like a mandala and includes a lot of abstract swirls and bright warm colors like yellow and orange.

2022 Cohort 2

2020 Cohort 1

Take Notice Fund

Provides project grants to artists of color living and working in Louisiana to advance their artistic practices. Learn more about the Take Notice Fund

2023

A symbolic and surreal illustration of the myth of Atlas. Against a blue background, a muscular Latino man with dark hair and a mustache crouches in the palm of a woman's bejeweled hand. He is wearing a white muscle t-shirt and brown pants, and he is blindfolded with a blue bandana. Upon his broad shoulders is a white and gray representation of Earth approximately three times larger than the man, with North and South America visible on the left half and Europe and Africa visible on the right half. The man's hands are bound with gold cords that extend to the top half of a broken pale yellow Greek column in the upper left corner of the painting, and to the bottom half of a broken pale yellow Greek column in the bottom right corner of the painting. Pink, red, and orange roses in full bloom fill the adjacent corners. Three giant, brownish-green snakes, with bellies the color of the Greek columns and heads as big as the man's chest, fill the space between the Earth and the four corners of the painting. One of the snakes is coiled around the wrist supporting the outstretched woman's hand; another snake is rising up from the bottom of the painting directly beneath the hand; and the third extends from behind the lower right column to behind the man, then up and over the roses in the upper right corner.

2022

2021

Funders

As a regranting organization, NPN’s investment in artists has been supported by an incredible group of funders over the years – some for a particular project or time, others for years-long partnership in deep, systemic transformation of our field – including: