2026 Light Work Grant Recipients
Light Work announces the 51st annual Light Work Grants in Photography! The 2026 award recipients are Maureen Beitler, Hernease Davis, Ian Sherlock Molloy, Amrita Stüzle, and Patty Tomanovich. The Light Work Grants in Photography are part of Light Work’s ongoing effort to provide support and encouragement to artists across New York State working in photography.
Light Work began offering grants to CNY artists in 1975 to encourage the production of new photographic work in the region. In 2026, we have expanded our eligibility region. Five $3,000 grants were awarded to photographers who live and work within New York State, outside of the New York City region.
The recipients of these grants will display their work in an exhibition at Light Work in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery from June 15th – August 7th, and their work will also be reproduced in a special publication of Light Work’s award-winning Contact Sheet.
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.
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.
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.
Amrita Stüzle
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.
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.
