Charlotte Street Reveals 2026 Visual Artist & Generative Performing Artist Award Fellows

Charlotte Street has announced the recipients of the 2026 Visual Artist and Generative Performing Artist Awards, honoring the outstanding achievements of Kansas City area contemporary artists. This year, Charlotte Street’s Visual Artist Fellows are Heehyun Choi, Eric Conrad, and Mikey Yates. Recipients of the Generative Performing Artist Fellowship are Dwight Frizzell and Karen Lisondra.

Since 1997, Charlotte Street’s Visual Artist Awards have supported 114 outstanding artists living in the Kansas City area through annual, unrestricted cash awards with more than $921,500 distributed directly to visual artists. This year’s Visual Artist Fellows have practices that span moving image, soft sculpture, drawing, and painting. Choi’s films explore the physical and virtual dimensions of projected images and the subjectivity of seeing; Conrad’s textile sculptures and installations examine vulnerability and the human condition; and Yates’ paintings investigate contemporary image-making through intimate moments and interpersonal connections. 

Charlotte Street launched its Generative Performing Artist Awards in 2008 as a parallel program to the Visual Artist Awards. To date, the organization has distributed $350,000 to 35 performing artists whose work expands the genre of performance. Generative Performing Artist Fellow Frizzell creates collectively based, socially engaged work spanning experimental music, filmmaking, and sound art, while Lisondra integrates devised theater, movement practices, and sound exploration into multidisciplinary performance. 

Each artist will receive an unrestricted cash grant of $10,000 and recognition by Charlotte Street throughout 2026—including announcements to media, web-based marketing and promotional efforts, and special events. Generative Performing Artist Fellows are further recognized with a professional video production piece filmed in the Charlotte Street Stern Theater. Visual Artist Fellows are further recognized with a professionally curated exhibition premiering at the Emily & Todd Voth Artspace in late fall 2026.

The 2026 Charlotte Street Awards were selected through a competitive process beginning with an open call for applications from artists based in the five-county Kansas City Metro Area and in Douglas County, Kansas. Selections were made by a panel of jurors consisting of renowned arts professionals. Jurors participated in in-person interviews, presentations, and studio visits, resulting in the selection of 10 finalists for the Visual Artist Awards and 8 finalists for the Generative Performing Artists Awards, participating in in-person presentations, and studio visits to determine this year’s fellows.