MOCA GA / 2026/2027 Working Artist Project Winners

Three women are shown in separate portraits: one behind shattered glass, one standing in front of red shapes, and one in a blue patterned outfit with arms crossed, in a colorful room.

Winners of the 2026-2027 Working Artist Project: Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn, Marie Munk, and Sonya Yong James

A person with blonde hair is wrapped in clear plastic, with only their eyes and eyebrows visible through the material against a dark background.

Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn

Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, curator, and disability rights advocate based in Atlanta, Georgia. A 2024 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Franklin Furnace Award, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, Idea Capital Grant, and numerous national artist fellowships, Blinkhorn has spent more than two decades creating work that investigates disability, gender, power, autonomy, and the politics of care. She earned her BFA from Kennesaw State University and her MFA from Georgia State University, where she
has taught since 2008.

A woman in a blue patterned garment stands with arms crossed, looking confident. Colorful geometric art pieces hang on the wall behind her.

Sonya Yong James

Sonya Yong James (b. Knoxville, Tennessee) lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. She received a BFA from Georgia State University, where she focused on printmaking and sculpture. James has exhibited nationally and internationally for the past twenty-five years and has been the recipient of several grants, including the Artadia grant in 2019, and was a nominee for the 2023 United States Artists Fellowship award.

A woman with long blonde hair stands in front of a shiny pink background, wearing a ribbed gray shirt with a large oval cutout and black stripes.

Marie Munk

Marie Munk (b.1988, Denmark) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Atlanta, GA. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art, London (2016). Munk works primarily in sculpture and large-scale installation, combining industrial fabrication with experimental use of silicone, resin, wood, and 3D printing.

A bearded man with short dark hair and yellow-patterned glasses, wearing a blue jacket over a white shirt, stands leaning against a light brick wall in a bright, modern hallway.

Evan Garza, Guest Curator

Evan Garza is a contemporary art scholar, queer art historian, and Curator at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. They recently edited Steve Locke: I Said What I Said, the artist’s first career monograph, published in March 2026 by DelMonico Books and MASS MoCA. Recent honors include a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives Research Residency, a Fulbright Scholarship at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), and curatorial grants from Teiger Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation. At MASS MoCA, Garza has worked on monographic exhibitions with artists Steve Locke, Jeffrey Gibson, Vincent Valdez, and Daniela Rivera. Garza’s forthcoming exhibition, Brother to Brother: Marlon Riggs and Essex Hemphill, will premiere in March 2027 at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University before traveling on a national tour. Garza has held curatorial and institutional leadership roles at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Garza was cofounder of Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR), a New York nonprofit and the first residency program in the world exclusively for LGBTQIA+ artists. They earned their M.A. from the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art at the Clark Art Institute.

About the Working Artist Project

MOCA GA’s Working Artist Project (WAP) was developed in support of established artists in the Metropolitan Atlanta area. Each year the program is funded by the Charles Loridans Foundation, the Antinori Foundation, the AEC Trust, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Including the three Fellows announced today, there are a total of 57 Fellows over the past 19 years. As a museum dedicated first and foremost to supporting Georgia’s contemporary artists, MOCA GA’s goal is to encourage these artists to remain in our city and establish Atlanta as one of the best cities for launching a viable career in the arts.

“This legacy initiative provides an unparalleled level of support for individual artists, expands the Museum’s mission, and promotes Atlanta as a city where artists can live, work, and thrive. MOCA GA supports artists by granting a major stipend to create new work; by presenting a solo exhibition of the new work; by producing an accompanying exhibition catalog; and by providing paid studio apprentices over the course of one year,” —Annette Cone-Skelton, Director of MOCA GA

The Working Artist Project is supported by the Charles Loridans Foundation, the Antinori Foundation, the PNC Foundation, and the Molly Blank Fund of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.