Celia Álvarez Muñoz received her MFA from the North Texas State University (University of North Texas) in Denton, Texas. Adriana Corral received her BFA from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2008 and an MFA at UT Austin in 2013. Vick Quezada holds a BA from the University of Texas at El Paso and an MFA from the UMASS Amherst.


USLAF is thrilled to announce our role as partners with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation in the Latinx Artist Fellowship and to welcome the inaugural cohort of fifteen artist fellows.

Since 2015, USLAF has championed the vitality of Latinx artists, who have historically lacked visibility and received little of the philanthropic or institutional support necessary to secure their place in the story of American art. Designed to address this systemic and longstanding lack of support, the Latinx Artist Fellowship will award $50,000 each to a multi-generational cohort of 15 Latinx visual artists each year for an initial commitment of five years. Administered by the US Latinx Art Forum (USLAF) in collaboration with the New York Foundation for the Arts and supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, this unrestricted award is the first significant prize of its kind and celebrates the plurality
and diversity of Latinx artists and aesthetics.

Meet the 2021 Cohort

The inaugural Fellowship class was chosen to reflect the diversity that exists within the Latinx community. It is deliberately inter-generational and highlights the practices of queer and gender nonconforming artists, as well as those from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, ranging from Chicanx and Afro-Latinx
to mestizo and Indigenous.

They are:

Elia Alba [she, her]
Multidisciplinary Artist
Lives and works in New York

Celia Álvarez Muñoz [she, her]
Artist and Activist
Lives and works in Arlington, TX

Carolina Caycedo [she, her]
Multidisciplinary Artist
Lives and works in Los Angeles

Adriana Corral [she, her]
Multidisciplinary Artist
Lives and works in Houston

rafa esparza [he, him, his, el]
Multidisciplinary Artist
Lives and works in Los Angeles

Christina Fernández [she, her]
Photographer and Educator
Lives and works in Los Angeles

Coco Fusco [she, her]
Interdisciplinary Artist and Writer
Lives and works in New York

Yolanda López [she, her]
Visual Artist
Lives and works in San Francisco

Miguel Luciano [he, him]
Multimedia Artist
Lives and works in New York

Guadalupe Maravilla [he, him]
Trans-disciplinary Visual Artist, Choreographer, and Healer
Lives and works in New York

Carlos Martiel [he, him]
Performance Artist
Lives and works in New York and Havana

Michael Menchaca [they, them]
Multidisciplinary Artist
Lives and works in San Antonio

Delilah Montoya [she, her]
Printmaker and Photographer
Lives and works in Houston

Vick Quezada [they, them]
Interdisciplinary Artist
Lives and works in Northampton, MA

Juan Sánchez [he, him]
Visual Artist
Lives and works in New York


Fellows were selected by a jury of art historians, scholars,
and curators at partner organizations:

Rita Gonzalez
(Terri and Michael Smooke Curator
and Department Head of Contemporary Art, LACMA)

Marcela Guerrero
(Assistant Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York)

Cesáreo Moreno
(Visual Arts Director and Chief Curator,
National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago)

Rodrigo Moura
(Chief Curator, El Museo del Barrio, New York)

Sylvia Orozco
(Co-founder and Executive Director,
Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin)

Mari Carmen Ramirez
(Wortham Curator of Latin American Art,
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)

Yasmin Ramirez
(Art Historian, Scholar, and Independent Curator).

The jurors evaluated more than 200 nominees recommended
by invited external nominators with expertise in Latinx art.

We hope that you will join us in celebrating this milestone moment
and consider making a donation to support our ongoing work.

I’m very honored to be included in this outstanding group of Compañeros! So happy to carry
my hometown El Paso as my beginnings! I left El Paso, but it never left me.
So much of it is in many of my works!
Celia Álvarez Muñoz

Guest Author

El Paso News guest authors.