Christine Sun Kim, Rodney McMillian Among 2026 MacArthur Fellows

Visual artists Christine Sun Kim, Rodney McMillian, Vincent Valdez, and Chip Thomas are among the 20 recipients of this year's MacArthur Fellowship, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced on September 29.

Each fellow receives an unrestricted $800,000 award, issued in quarterly installments over five years. The foundation describes the program as a no-strings-attached fellowship for those "who show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future." Fellows are nominated by external parties and selected by an independent committee.

Since 1981, the foundation has awarded 1,195 MacArthur fellowships across disciplines including art history, visual culture, writing, health policy, anthropological research, musical performance, and entrepreneurship.

Christine Sun Kim

Berlin-based Christine Sun Kim explores the political dimensions of communication in billboards, murals, performances, and a range of multimedia works. A sound artist who is Deaf, Kim frequently translates her works between American Sign Language and American English. Her video "Palm Reader" (2020) animates the signs for authoritative words such as "state" and "rule."

Rodney McMillian

Los Angeles-based Rodney McMillian works with secondhand quilts, thrifted household items, and a cast-iron piggy bank, among other found materials. In his 2026 exhibition A Son of the Soil at the Columbia Museum of Art, McMillian returned to his hometown of Columbia, South Carolina, to catalog his aesthetic investigations into the American South and his ongoing engagement with racial and socioeconomic injustice through artistic expression.

Vincent Valdez

Working out of Houston, Vincent Valdez merges Chicano art traditions with narrative painting techniques. His canvases often reach an almost mural-sized scale, creating unavoidable confrontations with the injustice, inequity, and stereotypes faced by his subjects. His eight-foot-tall painting "So Long, Mary Ann" (2019) depicts a tattooed man with his hands clasped, imbuing the portrait with empathy and dignity.

Chip Thomas

Chip Thomas built his artistic practice alongside his career as a primary care physician for the Navajo Nation, from which he retired in 2023. In collaboration with the Diné People, he has erected murals and integrated black-and-white photography into structures on the Navajo Nation's land. He also founded the Painted Desert Project (2012–22), which connected public artists to local communities through mural contributions.

Beyond the visual arts

This year's winners also include poet Layli Long Soldier, fiction writer Bryan Washington, dancer and choreographer Trajal Harrell, and saxophonist and composer Immanuel Wilkins.

The complete list of 2026 MacArthur Fellows: Holly Jean Buck, Felipe De Brigard, Ellora Derenoncourt, Elizabeth Ellis, Kaiyu Guan, Trajal Harrell, Marika Holland, Christine Sun Kim, Song Lin, Layli Long Soldier, Rodney McMillian, Maaza Mengiste, Ariel Ron, Kate Spradley, Chip Thomas, Vincent Valdez, Vincenzo Vitelli, Bryan Washington, Immanuel Wilkins, and Liangfang Zhang.

With four visual artists in a single class, the 2026 fellowships signal sustained foundation backing for artists addressing communication, regional history, and social justice as their fields' fellowships continue through the program's fifth decade.