ArtFields 2027 Offers Over $100,000 in Prizes and a New Public Art Track

Artists across twelve Southeastern states can compete for more than $100,000 in cash prizes — including a $50,000 Grand Prize — at the 2027 ArtFields Festival, which runs April 15 through May 1 in Lake City, South Carolina. The festival's 15th edition adds something new: for the first time, it is accepting proposals for large-scale, site-specific public art.

The application window is open now through November 1, 2026. Artists working in any medium and living in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, or West Virginia can submit one 2D or 3D work to the juried competition. The entry fee is $25.

Around 400 works are selected for exhibition. For three weeks each spring, Lake City's storefronts, restaurants, and galleries turn into a town-wide show.

What's new for 2027?

The public art track is the real change. Artists with an idea for an outdoor, large-scale, site-specific installation — the kind of project that needs more room than a gallery wall — can propose it for the streets and spaces of Lake City. The deadline is the same November 1, 2026, and there is no fee to apply.

So what does this change for artists? It opens a path for sculptors and installation makers whose work doesn't fit a juried wall competition. Previously, the festival's prize structure centered on discrete 2D and 3D objects; now the town itself is a possible canvas.

How the prizes break down

• Grand Prize: $50,000, part of a prize pool exceeding $100,000
• Juried competition: roughly 400 works selected, one submission per artist
• Eligibility: twelve Southeastern states, any medium
• Cost: $25 for the juried competition; free for public art proposals

Past editions give a sense of the range. Risa Hricovsky's porcelain work "Dissonance" won a 2025 Merit Award. Recent festivals have also featured works such as Kate Burke's "Staring Into the Eyes of the New Ophanim" and Nathan Grimes's "Holm, Home, Homme."

A decade and a half of building a Southern art platform

Since 2013, ArtFields has grown from a bid to elevate artists living and working in the South into a year-round arts organization. It has awarded more than $1 million in prize money along the way.

Beyond the juried show, the festival runs a live portrait contest, plein air painting (outdoor painting from life), and other programming.

Applications and full details are at artfieldssc.org. With the public art window now open alongside the competition, the 2027 edition marks the festival's broadest commitment yet to artists working at architectural scale.