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Nydia Blas Awarded Creative Capital's State of the Art Prize
Blas Gifted Artist Grant for Noteworthy Work in Multimedia Art
Spelman College is proud to announce that Nydia Blas, an assistant professor of photography, has been named a 2026 Creative Capital State of the Art Prize artist. Blas was recognized for her multidisciplinary work in photography, video and collage, which explores themes of intimacy, sexuality, and her lived experiences.
For the first time in Creative Capital’s 25-year history, the inaugural State of the Art Prize will provide a $10,000 unrestricted grant to 53 individual artists, one in every state, as well as Guam, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. With this new grant, Creative Capital extends its democratic, national, open call to serve more artists at the grassroots level and to foster creativity and innovation in a broad range of rural, regional, and urban communities.
“I am very honored to have received the State of the Art Prize for Georgia. I moved here almost eight years ago from my hometown of Ithaca, New York, to accept the position here at Spelman, so to represent Georgia, as someone who was not born and raised in the South, I do not take lightly,” said Blas. “My project proposal was to create a disjointed narrative about Atlanta, Georgia, that consists of documentary and staged photographs that reveal the wealth discrepancies of a city that is experiencing rapid gentrification and housing issues. While simultaneously, revealing this magical place of refuge for Black people.”
Artists, including Blas, were selected from a pool of 4,546 applications from all 50 states and regions in the United States via a democratic, national open call. Project proposals were evaluated through an external review process that included 107 industry leaders, programmers, cultural producers, and artists, and culminated in discipline-specific final panels.
“This award means that I can begin making this body of work," said Blas. "Additionally, it supports my larger vision for making photographs in places that I am not from, including outside of this country. I have a unique way of making connections with a land, getting to know people, and working collaboratively, to make photos with them. In March, I will return to Marseille, France, for a group exhibition that I am apart of entitled, En Route. I was on residency in Marseille, France, in the Summer of 2025 for one month making this body of work. All of my future projects and opportunities will include more travel, more love, more resistance, while holding the vision of freedom for all.”