Individual Artist Fellowship Awards Grant

The Individual Artist Fellowship Awards, offered by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, support practicing artists in New Jersey to pursue their artistic goals. Eligible artistic categories range from Film and Digital to Painting and Interdisciplinary works, fostering creativity across diverse disciplines.

NOTE: There are 2 deadlines for this grant.
New Jersey State Council on the Arts
Since its creation, the State Arts Council’s volunteer members and professional staff have worked to improve the quality of life in New Jersey through strategic support for the arts.
Individual Artist Fellowships
Individual Artist Fellowships (Fellowships) are awarded to practicing New Jersey artists to enable them to pursue their artistic goals. Fellows are selected through a competitive evaluation process by independent panels of peer reviewers. Panelists review the applications anonymously and score the work based solely on the artistic quality of the work submitted as part of the application. Fellowships are not need or project-based.
FY 2026 Artistic Categories
Film/Video:

• This category accepts all genres of film and video as well as any other timebased work produced by recording visual images.
• Digital/Electronic

This category accepts time-based, interactive, or kinetic work where technology is pivotal to the meaning and/or presentation of the work such as electronic installations, virtual and augmented reality, internet projects, and other emerging forms. Film/video and responsive audio components that are incorporated into a larger installation work are also accepted in this category.
Interdisciplinary:
This category accepts work that is created by combining two or more Fellowship disciplines. The category is intended for work that would not otherwise be appropriate for review in any of the individual Fellowship disciplines due to the interdisciplinary nature of the work. Mixed media work that is primarily one medium, or work where each disciplinary component could be performed or exhibited independently should NOT be submitted in this category.
Painting
This category accepts all forms of painting, with the exception of digital painting, including watercolor, acrylic, gouache, oil, tempera, encaustic, mural/fresco, graffiti, and paintings that incorporate mixed media.
Prose:
This category accepts all forms of fiction, literary nonfiction, and other creative prose including novels, novellas, short stories, essays, criticism, journalism, and biography. Technical writing is not accepted.
Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts:
This category accepts all forms of drawing, printmaking, etching, collage, illustration, and installations in which printmaking or drawing techniques are pivotal, and other visual 2-dimensional media other than painting. Book art and examples of artistic bookmaking are also eligible in this category. Artist catalogues and literary books are not accepted. Other sculptural forms constructed of paper should be submitted in the Sculpture category.