coLAB Arts' Monthly Artist Grant celebrates artists in New Jersey who use creative practice to support their local communities and create greater public good. Please consider joining coLAB Arts as a recurring donor to expand and sustain this important grant making.
If you’d like to nominate yourself or others to be considered for a future monthly artist grant, use the provided button to access the form.
Estefany (Stef) Rodríguez, a 26-year-old Latina artist and art educator from the Dominican Republic, is on a mission to ignite artistic inspiration in the next generation, using art as a means of healing and growth.
NJ-based award-winning performer/writer & educator, marcus d. harvey believes in the power of art and its transformation. marcus recently directed Surely Goodness and Mercy at Passage Theatre Company. He is currently at work on his first full length play, i am not okay, centered around depression, suicide and mental health in the Black and Latinx communities. He currently teaches acting at Montclair State University and New Jersey City University. His motto for life is “On the other side of fear is a fantastic possibility.”
Kirk Maynard is a mixed media artist who is originally from Brooklyn, New York. A second-generation Guyanese-American, Maynard’s work focuses on the political undercurrents of culture and identity in America. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in New York City, San Francisco, and New Jersey. He has also given artist talks at the New Museum, Queens College, and Princeton University. Maynard currently lives and works in Orange, New Jersey.
Kenya Bullock is an interdisciplinary artist and civil rights advocate from Trenton, NJ. In August 2018, Kenya began working with Ping Chong and Company, as a Generation NYZ Fellow and Associate Lighting Designer for BAD HUSBAND //\\ BAD HOMO. In March of 2020, Kenya launched her own community theater Tha Block Theatre Company, LLC. Tha Block intends to become a cultural hub in Trenton, NJ, with a mission to promote theatre and art as healing tools. Kenya has worked with artists such as Charlotte Brathwaite, Abigail Deville and Sanford Biggers, and interned with BlackStar Film Festival and Trenton‘s Passage Theatre. Kenya’s goal as an artist and community advocate is to redistribute resources while also providing a space of artistic exploration and healing for Trentonians. She received a Theatre Design degree from Dickinson college. Kenya’s studies focused on how different art forms are the language that connects the African Diaspora and how that understanding can be used to heal the communities of the Black and Brown. You can make a direct contribution to Kenya via the Cash.App/$thablockllc.
Alicia Saadi is a multi-disciplinary artist whose current focus is collage. Her work often references the aftermath of civil unrest, as well as the sexist portrayals of women that lingered during her childhood.