This group of six artists will be in residence at Smack Mellon from September 5, 2025 through August 5, 2026. As part of the Artist Studio Program, the artists will be granted a private studio, a fellowship, and access to equipment with which to create new and develop existing work, establish relationships with arts professionals, and grow in community with their peers—all with the financial, technical, and administrative support of Smack Mellon.
The public is invited into the studios to meet the artists during Open Studio events twice per year. The studios are located on the lower level of our building at 92 Plymouth Street in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. Visit our Public Programs page or subscribe to our mailing list for updates on these events.
The Artist Studio Program was launched in 2000 in response to the crisis of available affordable space for artists living and working in New York City. The program provides six eligible artists working in all visual arts media with 24/7 access to a free private studio space, a state-of-the-art digital production lab, and a fabrication shop for an eleven-month period.
Each year, Smack Mellon convenes a panel of arts professionals to select the artists from over 400 applicants. The 2025-2026 Studio Artist Panelists were: Salome Asega, Director of NEW INC; Roxana Fabius, Independent Writer and Curator; and Jovanna Venegas, Curator at Sculpture Center.
Preliminary panelists were former Smack Mellon Studio or Exhibition artists: Megan Mi-Ai Lee, fields harrington, Kevin Quiles Bonilla, Miatta Kawinzi, Madjeen Isaac, Yuchen Chang, Mo Kong, and Luba Drozd.
Panelist Bios:
Salome Asega is an artist and Director of NEW INC, a cultural incubator for art, design, and technology at the New Museum. Salome is a United States Artists Fellow and an inaugural cohort member of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab developed by Theaster Gates, Rebuild Foundation, and Prada. She is also a co-founder of POWRPLNT, a Brooklyn digital arts lab for teens. Salome has participated in residencies and fellowships with Eyebeam, The Laundromat Project, and Recess. She has exhibited at the Munch Museum, the 11th Shanghai Biennale, MoMA, HEK (Haus der Elektronischen Künste), Carnegie Library, August Wilson Center, Knockdown Center, and more. Salome sits on the boards of Jerome Foundation, School for Poetic Computation, National Performance Network and is on the Advisory Board for the Social Science Research Council’s Just Tech initiative.
Roxana Fabius is a curator and art administrator. Between 2016 and 2022 she was Executive Director at A.I.R. Gallery in New York City, the first artist-run feminist cooperative space in the U.S. During her tenure. She organized programs and exhibitions with artists and thinkers such as Gordon Hall, Elizabeth Povinelli, Jack Halberstam, Che Gosset, Regina José Galindo, Lex Brown, Kazuko, Zarina, Mindy Seu, Naama Tzabar and Howardena Pindell among others. These exhibitions, programs and commissions were made in collaboration with international institutions such as the Whitney Museum (New York) Google Arts and Culture, The Feminist Institute, and Frieze Art Fair in New York and London. Fabius curated the 2024 exhibition series “Cantando Bajito” at the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York. She is the incoming Director and Chief Curator of the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Jovanna Venegas is Curator at SculptureCenter, New York. She began her role in January 2024. Her recent exhibitions at SculptureCenter include Luana Vitra: Amulets, ASMA: Ideal Space for Music, and Alexa West. From 2017 to 2023, Venegas worked at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, concluding her tenure as the Associate Curator of Contemporary Art. While at SFMOMA she curated New Work: Fernando Palma Rodríguez (2023) and Bay Area Walls: Liz Hernández (2021) and co-organized New Work: Wu Tsang (2021); Shifting the Silence (2022); the 2022 SECA Art Award; and Sitting on Chrome: Mario Ayala, rafa esparza, and Guadalupe Rosales (2023-2024). Additionally, she served as curatorial advisor for the Whitney Biennial 2022 on the U.S./Mexico border region Venegas holds a BA in art history from the University of California at Los Angeles and an MA in curatorial practice from the School of Visual Arts, New York.
The Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York City Council Member Lincoln Restler, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and with generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Jerome Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Inc., Select Equity Group Foundation, and Smack Mellon’s Members.
Smack Mellon programs are also made possible with generous support from the Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Wolf Kahn Foundation, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, Robert Lehman Foundation, The Roy and Niuta Titus Foundation, and the Buckholz/Fontaine Fund.
In-kind donations and services are provided by Team, Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC Department of Sanitation/NYC Department of Education and Sage and Coombe Architects.
Space for Smack Mellon’s programs is generously provided by the Walentas family and Two Trees Management.
