City of West Hollywood Announces 2026 Arts Grant Program Grant Recipients

The City of West Hollywood has announced the recipients for its 2026 Arts Grant Program, totaling $227,000 awarded to 34 new grantees and 5 multi-year grantees who are all Los Angeles County-based non-profit arts organizations and artists.

The City of West Hollywood, through its Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission, has maintained an Arts Grant Program since 1997. The Program provides funding support to eligible artists and non-profit arts organizations for the production, performance, or presentation of arts projects that take place in the City of West Hollywood and that serve the West Hollywood community.

The Arts Grant Program is considered a central component to arts and cultural programs and services provided by the City of West Hollywood. Arts grants offer subsidized funding to artists and organizations so that ticket prices are free or low cost for the public. In other cases, art grants provide opportunities for artistic development, allowing space for stimulating creativity and deepening cross-cultural understanding, while contributing to the quality-of-life residents and visitors can enjoy in West Hollywood. The funding provided through the vehicle of a grant ensures a fair and equitable review process and results in the reflection of the diversity contained among the residents of West Hollywood.

The City received a total of 116 applications representing a variety of arts disciplines and a wide array of projects. Following peer panel reviews and the Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission funding recommendations, the West Hollywood City Council approved the arts grantees at its regular meeting on Monday, October 20, 2025.

The Arts Project Grant category supports the production, performance, or presentation of art projects that take place in the City of West Hollywood and that serve the West Hollywood community. It is a two-year grant. The following non-profit arts organizations are grant recipients for 2026-2027: Banjee Ball Foundation, Beyond Baroque presents Pride Poets, Greenway Arts Alliance, Heidi Duckler Dance, Helix Collective, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, MashUp Contemporary Dance Company, ONE Archives Foundation, Prism Comics Inc, Rogue Artists Ensemble, South East European Film Festival, and West Coast Singers.

The Community Arts Grant intends to support non-profit arts organizations with a history of supporting Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities, LGBQ communities and/or female artists and audiences. The grant recipients for 2026 in this category include: Ammunition Theatre Company, Jennifer Cheng, Jamison Riley Edgar, Leopold Nunan Soares, Karin Tatsuoka, and Women Who Submit.

The new-for-2026 category of the Filmmakers Grant is designed to support film artists with the finishing elements of their project. Funds may be used for the following: picture/sound editing, additional photography, post sound, color grading, DCP (Digital Cinema Package), music/composing/music rights, VFX (visual effects). Films must be completed within 2026. The grant recipients for 2026 in this category include: Aaron Bear, Keith Glassman Dance & Performance, Little Heart Film, and Anthony Meindl.

The Transgender, Gender Diverse, Intersex Arts Grant category supports and enhances the presentation of artworks in West Hollywood by transgender artists, artist collectives or groups, and non-profit organizations with a history of supporting transgender artists. First initiated in 2013, this grant category is the first to support artwork by, for, and about the transgender community. The 2026 grant recipients in this category are: Wesleigh Gates, Samara Goodman, Lovely Bouquet of Flowers, LZ Love, Zo Shay, and Socks Whitmore.

The WeHo Artist Grant aims to nurture and support the long-term development of an artist's ideas by providing funds that increase the capacity for artists to realize work, advance the conditions of creation, and navigate the complexities of both making art and making a career. The West Hollywood resident artist grant recipients for 2026 are: Omid Omidvar, Patricia Hautéa de Padua, Marco Palou, Julia Stephens, and Kylie Vincent.

In addition to these new grant awardees, the City continues to support its multi-year grantees in their second year of programming. The multi-year grantees are: Arts Bridging the Gap, Invertigo Dance Theatre, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Synchromy, and Women's Voices Now.

The City of West Hollywood is committed to providing accessible arts programming for residents and visitors. The City delivers a broad array of arts programs through its Arts Division including Art on the Outside (temporary public art), Arts Grants for Artists and Non-profit Arts Organizations, City Poet Laureate Program, Drag Laureate Program, Free Theatre in the Parks, Human Rights Speakers Series, Library Exhibits and Programming, Summer Sounds/Winter Sounds, Urban Art Program (permanent public art), WeHo Reads, and the WeHo Pride Arts Festival.

For additional information about the City of West Hollywood's Arts Grant Program, please visit https://www.weho.org/arts.

For more information, please contact Eva Angeloff, Grants Coordinator in the City of West Hollywood's Arts Division, at (323) 848-6354 or at [email protected]. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, please call TTY (323) 848-6496.

For up-to-date information about City of West Hollywood news and events, follow @wehocity on social media, sign-up for news updates at https://www.weho.org/email, and visit the City's calendar of meetings and events at https://www.weho.org/calendar. City Hall services are accessible by phone at (323) 848-6400 and via website at https://www.weho.org. Sign up for the City's text message program by texting "WeHo" to (323) 848-5000.

For reporters and members of the media seeking additional information about the City of West Hollywood, please contact the City of West Hollywood's Public Information Officer, Sheri A. Lunn, at (323) 848-6391 or [email protected].