Pictured: Long Food Line Detail 5 by Francisco Souto
The Individual Artist Fellowship program recognizes artists in Nebraska. Fellowship recipients are chosen by a professional panel according to the merit of their work. Funds must be used for the creation of new art, presentations, training, and/or research.
The fellowship program rotates among three umbrella categories of artistic achievement: literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry); filmmaking and performing arts (choreography, playwriting, composition, interdisciplinary performance); and visual arts (painting/drawing, photography, ceramics, installation, mixed media, printmaking, glass, sculpture, textiles, video).
View previous Individual Artist Fellowship Recipients.
Shelby Sheir (Omaha): Shelby Seier is a self-taught visual artist with a background in performing arts. She earned a theater degree from Trinity University and performed improvisational comedy at the renowned Del Close Marathon before shifting her focus to visual art due to barriers in performing. She was a teaching artist in theater and dance at Omaha’s Rose Theater and the Playhouse Theater and especially enjoyed creating accommodative classroom spaces for young people with autism.
In 2019, her mother gifted her a sewing machine, and by 2021, Seier began creating 4×3-inch improvised quilt blocks. With a modest portfolio, she submitted to MADRE Linen’s zero waste quilting project in 2022 and was one of seven quilters selected for the commission, marking her first larger quilt top project.
Her debut solo show, On Hold, was held at Omaha’s DIY Fleabane Gallery in spring 2023. The exhibit featured improvised stretched quilt tops, framed drawings of beds and chairs, and creative accommodations like tactile art replicas, ASL interpretation, and a detailed Accessibility Guide. She received the juried Amplify Arts Generator Grant in September 2023.
In February 2024, Omaha Magazine featured her practice. That year, she earned the ACRE Residency for emerging artists, one of 60 selected from 500 applicants. Alongside Joelle Wellansa Sandfort, she received the Populus Fund (supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation) to produce accessibly-designed nature loom community events in spring 2025.
Seier recently completed the AMP Movement Research Fellowship (funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) and was selected from 240 applicants to create commissioned work for Omaha’s new Central Public Library. She will also present a solo show with Omaha’s ART+YOU in fall 2025.
Jordan Ramsey Ismaiel (Hastings): Jordan Ramsey Ismaiel (they/them) is a painter and drawer based in Hastings, Nebraska. Having moved to the rural Midwest at the age of 15 from Washington D.C., their research centers their experiences living in the ‘Great Plains’ to examine sexuality, gender, and race. More closely, their studio practice explores emotional safety through processes of self-portraiture and composite imagery; staging moments of self-provided partnership.
Their work was included in “Meet Me in the Middle of Nowhere,” curated by Kyle Herrington, at the Hessel Museum of Art with the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York; and featured in GAYLETTER Magazine by Tyler Akers. They received a BA in Studio Art and Philosophy & Religion from Hastings College, and both an MA and MFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Iowa where they were a recipient of the 2021-22 Iowa Arts Fellowship.
Dana Fritz (Lincoln): Dana Fritz explores how we shape and represent the land, engaging ideas about climate change, environmental history, and ecology in a place based practice. Fritz’s work has been exhibited widely across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her prints and artist books are in public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City), Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston Hirsch Library, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Centro de Iniciativas Culturales de la Universidad de Sevilla, Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and Nevada Museum of Art’s Center for Art + Environment Archive. Fritz has been awarded artist residencies including Villa Montalvo (California,) Biosphere 2 (Arizona,) PLAYA (Oregon,) Homestead National Historical Park (Nebraska,) and Tallgrass Artist Residency (Kansas.) Her work has been published in numerous exhibition catalogs including IN VIVO: the nature of nature, Encounters: Photography from the Sheldon Museum of Art, Grasslands/Separating Species, Reclamation: Artist Books about the Environment, and Embodied Forest. In addition to several self-published limited edition artist books, she published Terraria Gigantica: The World under Glass with University of New Mexico Press in 2017 and Field Guide to a Hybrid Landscape with University of Nebraska Press in 2023. Fritz is Hixson-Lied Professor of Art and a Center for Great Plains Studies Fellow at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Hannah Demma (Lincoln): Hannah Demma is a multimedia artist specializing in papermaking. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska Lincoln in 2017, with an emphasis on printmaking and her Masters in Fine Art at her alma mater in 2022.
In 2018 Hannah received a Mayor’s Art Award and during her MFA she was the recipient of the Dan and Barbara Howard Creative Achievement Award (2021) and the Francis William Vreeland Award in Art (2022). Hannah received Best in Show awards at the Lincoln Arts Festival in 2022 and again in 2023, as well as Best in Show at the Sioux City Art Festival in 2023. She served as coordinator for the Cedar Point Biological Station artist residency and Art Adventure camp from 2017-2023 and Executive Director at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, an artist residency program in Nebraska City, NE From 2023-2024.
Hannah currently works as a papermaker and papermaking instructor at Constellation Studios, as an Artist Liaison for the Lux Center for the Arts and will be the 2025 Artist-in-Residence at the Cornhusker Marriott Hotel, all in Lincoln, NE.
In addition to her roles in the local arts community, Hannah has maintained a busy studio practice as well as lecture and exhibition schedules and looks forward to expanding her studio practice to include new mediums and collaborations.
Beatriz Rodriguez (Wayne): Beatriz Rodriguez is a Cuban born artist, and educator at Wayne State College. Rodriguez received her BFA degree in Printmaking from Florida International University, graduating with honors and shortly after went on to receive her MFA from the University of Miami. While attending the University of Miami, Rodriguez received the Art Printmaking Award for two consecutive years.
Her artwork has been widely exhibited at South Florida art galleries and fairs. She’s also shown in museums such as The Yellowstone Art Museum and The Bradbury Art Museum, where she received the Cultural Steward Award. Her work has been published in Saw Palm: Florida Literature and Art, as well as in Voyage Magazine Miami.
Patrick Casey (Lincoln): Patrick Casey earned his Masters in Fine Arts specializing in Printmaking with a secondary concentration in Sculpture from the University of Iowa and a Bachelors of Fine Art from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Printmaking. His work has been shown nationally and internationally. He has exhibited his work at Galatea Fine Art in Boston, MA, Vietnam University of Fine Art in Hanoi, Vietnam, Manhattan Graphics Center in NY, NY, and the Transylvanian Art Centre in Sfantu Gheorghe, Romania.
He was a recipient of the Genevieve McMillan/Reba Stewart Travelling Fellowship in Printmaking, the Wilhelm and Jane Bodine Fellowship, an Outstanding Teaching Award at the University of Iowa, and a Mass Cultural Council Fellowship in Drawing and Printmaking. Casey has taught at the University of Iowa, Skidmore College, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Lesley University, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is currently a Printmaking Instructor at the Live Yes Studios in Lincoln, NE.
Bradley Peters (Lincoln): Bradley Peters received his MFA in Photography from the Yale University School of Art and his BA in Art and Psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His work is part of many public and private collections internationally and has been included in numerous publications on the subject of photography, most notably, Image Makers, Image Takers: The Essential Guide to Photography by Those in the Know, by Anne-Celine Jaeger. He is the 2008 recipient of the Richard Benson Prize for Excellence in Photography and his photographs were the subject of a recent solo show at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. His teaching resume includes Yale University, Southeast Community College, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Concordia University. Some of his clients include, Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine, State Farm Insurance, Whole Foods, and Le Quartier Baking Company.
This is a competitive program based on a professional peer review process. Applicants are adjudicated according to the merit of their work by out-of-state jurors selected for their expertise as established career professionals in the artistic discipline under consideration. Evaluation criteria are based on the quality of work, which includes innovation demonstrated by significant critical and aesthetic considerations explored through the art form. Artists must be able to show how the funding supported artist related presentations, training, research, and/or creation of new art. Artists may include information about how they plan to use their fellowship funding in the Artist Statement portion of the application.
Applicants may be awarded up to $5,000 through the Individual Artist Fellowship program. Funds must be used for the creation of new art, presentations, training, and/or research.
Artist biography: An artist biography highlights your artistic practice and any previous exhibitions, education or related experience. Information included is similar to a CV/Resume, but is in paragraph form. It delivers how your career highlights have propelled you to your current position and where you are headed.
CV/Resume: A List format with relevant dates and details for each accomplishment, including educational, performance, publication, positions, etc. For additional guidance writing a CV, try this link, or try this link for an artist Resume. (not required for program)
Originating Artist: The artist submitting the work is who created the work, which can be differentiated from an artist who performs, interprets, or present a piece of work of another artist.
Contact Meagan Dion for more information.