This group of six artists will be in residence at Smack Mellon from September 5, 2026 through August 5, 2027. 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 2026-2027 Studio Artist Panelists were: Nova Benway, Executive Director of Triangle Arts Association; Ian Cofre, Independent Writer and Curator; and Pallavi Surana, Independent Writer and Curator.
Preliminary panelists were former Smack Mellon Studio or Exhibition artists: mujero, Christian Amaya Garcia, Juan José Cielo, Utsa Hazarika, Armando Guadalupe Cortés, Angélica Maria Millán Lozano.
Panelist Bios:
Nova Benway is Executive Director of Triangle Arts Association, an artist residency founded in New York in 1982 which hosts year-round residencies for local and international artists and curators, and has expanded to a worldwide network of more than forty members. She was previously a curator at The Drawing Center in New York City, where she co-directed Open Sessions, a two-year residency/exhibition hybrid program organized with local, national, and international artists, supporting drawing practices in relation to film, architecture, sculpture, music, and other fields. An alumna of the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, she also holds a B.A. from McGill University, Montreal.
Ian Cofre is an independent curator, writer, and translator based in Brooklyn, NY. Often working collaboratively, for nearly 20 years he has created spaces for inquiry through exhibitions and programs that critically examine contemporary problems in an interdisciplinary manner. From 2019-23, he was Director of PS122 Gallery (NY), and most recently organized and produced over 50 programs as Director of Programs at the National Academy of Design (2023-25). Recent projects include: Raimundo Edwards: Threshold (KSTN / Kastanien Projektraum, Berlin, 2022); and, Bronx Calling: The Fifth AIM Biennial, co-curated with Eva Mayhabal Davis (Bronx Museum, 2021-22). His writing and criticism have appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, TUSSLE, artcritical, and Arte al Día, and profiles and reviews of his exhibitions and projects can be found in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, The Art Newspaper, Arte al Día International, Cultured Magazine, Billedkunst, and New York Review of Architecture, among others.
Pallavi Surana is an arts writer and curator based in New York. She is currently working on projects with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and curator Cecilia Alemani. She has recently curated exhibitions at Smack Mellon, GHOSTMACHINE, and Hessel Museum of Art in New York. Previously, she has held positions at SculptureCenter and Hessel Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), Flint, and St+India Foundation in India; as well as the Cookhouse Gallery and the Camden Arts Centre in London. Her writing has appeared in publications like Eflux Criticism, Momus, The Art Newspaper and Ocula, among others. Pallavi has been a visiting critic at various residencies around New York City, such as Pioneer Works, EFA Studios and NARS foundation, among others. She has a graduate degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard).
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.
