It is with great pleasure that we present the Annual Light Work Grants in Photography exhibition. For its fifty-first year, Light Work has expanded the region to include all of New York state, with the exception of New York City. The five grant recipients are: Maureen Beitler (Columbia), Hernease Davis (Monroe), Ian Sherlock Molloy (Onondaga), Amrita Stützle (Onondaga), and Patty Tomanovich (Monroe). These photographers reflect the strength and vitality of our talented regional community. They explore the full range of what it means to be an image-maker today.

While all five grant recipients share certain themes and practices, they remain very distinct in their respective uses of the expanded visual language of contemporary photography. Among the subjects explored are labor (both in the home and in the workforce), the body’s relationship to an interior self, the urban landscape, and the natural world. Beitler, Molloy, and Stützle use current technologies of digital capture and inkjet printing; Davis and Tomanovich create unique prints via alternative processes.

Extending Light Work’s Grant program from three recipients and seventeen counties to five winners from fifty-seven counties better reflects the program’s core mission, which is to give immediate support to underrepresented and emerging artists. By expanding our geographical radius and increasing the number of awards, Light Work is more fully able to showcase the statewide talent and dedication of artists working today.

2026 Light Work Grants Recipients

Maureen Beitler

In 2025, Maureen Beitler’s To the Bone was presented as a solo exhibition at Woodstock Center of Photography; work from the series also appeared in Osmos and The Sun magazines and was named a finalist for the Working Assumptions Project Grant. In 2024, Beitler received First Prize in the Woodstock Center for Photography Portfolio Review and an Individual Artist Grant from the Create Council for the Arts. In 2023, she exhibited in While You Were Away at SLA Art Space in New York and was named a JGS Fellow in Photography by the New York Foundation for the Arts. Beitler’s earlier exhibitions include: In Search of the Just City, Hahne & Co. Building, Newark, NJ; The Protest Art Show, Time & Space Limited, Hudson, NY; and Family and Home, Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, NY (all 2019); Glimpses of Grace in the City, City Seminary Walls/Ortiz Gallery, New York (2017); Of Light and Time, Terrazzo Art Projects, New York (2014); and Faith in Harlem, Photographic Gallery, New York (2008). In 2016, Beitler was selected for the New York Times Portfolio Review by James Estrin. From 2012 to 2016, she completed the Independent Study Program and served as a teaching assistant at the International Center of Photography. Her early work from Harlem was included in Rickie Solinger’s traveling exhibition Beggars and Choosers: Motherhood Is Not a Class Privilege in America (2004–6) and coincided with participation in Moving Walls 9 at the Open Society Foundations, curated by Susan Meiselas. Beitler received her first Fellowship in Photography from New York Foundation for the Arts in 2004.

maureenbeitler.com

Hernease Davis

Hernease Davis is a photo-based artist and curator whose practice is spurred by curiosity in process, one’s psychological nature, and connections made possible through art when complexities are acknowledged and welcomed. Davis uses photography, craft, and sound to create multi-sensorial works exploring complex notions of empathy. Her work has been widely exhibited in institutions and galleries throughout the US, including the International Center of Photography, Cleveland Museum of Art, Houston Center for Photography, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Brooklyn, NY. Davis’s work was included in Direct Contact: Cameraless Photography Now at the Eskenazi Museum of Art, the first survey exhibition of cameraless photography to focus on contemporary, intergenerational, and global artists. Davis’s work has been profiled in Hyperallergic, Lens Culture, Lenscratch, and Frontrunner Magazine. In addition, her practice inspired an article about trauma in Musée Magazine, and her work is featured in Decolonization and Diversity in Contemporary Photography: The Dodge & Burn Interviews, edited by Qiana Mestrich (Routledge, 2025). Davis earned her BA in biology from Swarthmore College and her MFA in advanced photographic studies from ICP-Bard College.

herneasedavis.com

Ian Sherlock Molloy

Ian Sherlock Molloy creates photographs and audio depicting the places he lives, and those closest to him. The modest interactions that he documents amount to short-form works akin to poetry. Intimacy, notions of beauty, and reflections on geography’s emotional impact drive his creative process. The work often manifests in small exhibitions, books, and sonic performances. Originally from Central New York, Molloy has returned after earning an MFA at the University of Oregon. He has exhibited, performed, and made publications with numerous institutions in the United States and abroad. When he isn’t in the studio, he spends his time running.

i-sm.studio

Amrita Stützle

Amrita Stützle is an Austrian American artist and educator working primarily in lens-based media. Her work investigates the continued presence of historical events concerning gender, ritual, labor, and the environment. She has worked with several nonprofit arts organizations, including Light Work, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Slought, and the ICA Philadelphia. She was a 2018 Saltonstall Artist-in-Residence fellow and a 2019 Magenta Foundation Top 100 Emerging Photographers winner. She is a recipient of the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation’s Student Grant and a 2023 JGS Fellowship for Photography Award. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and published in The New York Times as well as publications from Oranbeg Press and Ain’t–Bad.

amritastutzle.com

Patty Tomanovich

Patty Tomanovich is a visual artist from Rochester, NY. He uses a combination of alternative and digital processes to create photographs and moving images. His work subverts photography’s traditional strengths of clarity and reproducibility, and embraces obscurity as he strives toward a sustainable darkroom practice. Tomanovich received his MFA in photography and related media from Rochester Institute of Technology and has exhibited his work in Roca Tiles NYC Showroom, New York (2025), Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, NY (2025), and Create Gallery, Bristol, UK (2024). He is currently teaching photography at Monroe Community College and continues to make photographs and short-form videos out of his studio in Rush, NY.

pattytomanovich.com

—