Visual Arts students Cherina Cheng and Natalie Jacobs were recently awarded summer 2026 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants.
Based in Montreal, the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation is a nonprofit organization that supports emerging artists as they launch their careers and develop their practice. The foundation funds artists working with traditional tools and techniques, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing. These grants connect artists with resources to support their artistic development—time to experiment, access to education, and expanded creative autonomy. First-time recipients receive CAD $17,000 and, if eligible, may apply for a second and third grant of CAD $20,000 each.
“I am deeply honored to be selected as a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grant,” says Cheng, a painter based in New York. “This invaluable support provides the crucial time and resources to fully immerse myself in the studio, allowing me to expand the scale of my paintings and deepen my practice during this pivotal stage of my MFA.”
Cheng’s oil paintings explore the psychological displacements of immigration, time, and memory through the framing device of interior spaces—empty rooms whose windows look out onto a world made strange. Through a deliberate process of layering and removing paint, she manipulates surface and perspective to blur the boundary between reality and recollection, charging domestic motifs with the distance between past and present.
Jacobs, a painter and printmaker based in New York, views painting as a way to make the internal Odyssey external. She credits the grant with providing emerging artists with much-needed financial support.
“I’m so honored to follow all of these artists I admire in receiving an Elizabeth Greenshields grant,” says Jacobs. “It’s really financially hard to be an artist right now, and grants like these help us sustain.”
See a full list of grantees here.
