FAIR in the Arts is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2025 Artist Grant!
The winners of our 2025 Artist Grant span a wide range of artistic practices, professional backgrounds, and life experiences. They are filmmakers, theater artists, visual artists, writers, and educators. They are ambassadors, thought leaders, and innovators who represent our mission to change culture by creating new, better culture. We are honored to support their work.
FAIR congratulates our 2025 Artist Grant winners:
Grand Prize – Julie Eicher Aguilar, Robert Cooperman, Maziar Ghaderi, Frank Mihelich, Lou Perez, Molly Surazhsky, Julia Wald, and Elena Velez.
Runners Up – Seth Clayton, Nicholas Cueva, Lauren Marshall, Kate Rodriguez, Tom Rowan, and Aleta Valente. Learn more about our Artist Grant winners below.
FAIR Artist Grant 2025 Winners
Julie Eicher Aguilar
Executive Producer and Co-Director
Julie Eicher Aguilar is the executive producer of The Antidote, a feature documentary she is currently co-directing with Jeff Wise. She previously toured with the Broadway productions of Miss Saigon (u/s Ellen) and The Phantom of the Opera (corps de ballet, u/s Meg Giry), and performed in An American in Paris (Lise – IRNE Award), Carousel at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and at Houston Grand Opera. Her choreography spans stage and screen, including On the Town, Anastasia, and dance film projects in New York. Julie holds a BFA in Ballet from CCM/University of Cincinnati, Magna Cum Laude. She also spent two years in corporate sales at Dell Technologies, where she consistently ranked as a top performer. She is a member of Mensa, and brings a strong foundation in both the arts and business to her work as a filmmaker and creative leader.
Robert Cooperman
Theatre Producer and Playwright
Robert Cooperman is the founder of Stage Right Theatrics, a company that produces plays guided by our nation’s founding principles of individualism, moral virtue, reason, and human nature. His productions reject victimization as the cause of conflict and substitute dismay and meaninglessness with hope and redemption. Additionally, Stage Right strives to increase cultural literacy, particularly as it relates to American theatre history, through its new program, “Before They Were Gods,” a celebration of master American playwrights and the evolution of their artistry. Aside from his work in the theatre, Robert writes articles about culture and theatre for The Epoch Times and is a podcaster. He is originally from Queens, New York but now resides in Columbus, Ohio.
Maziar Ghaderi
Filmmaker
Maziar Ghaderi is an Iranian-Canadian filmmaker and media artist whose work challenges ideological conformity and explores themes of identity, free expression, and cultural polarization. As co-founder of the blcknbrwn media arts collective, he has produced critically acclaimed projects like The Rise of Jordan Peterson, which sparked international dialogue on freedom of speech and political tribalism. His current work, Insert More Tokens, is a photo series that critiques the tokenization of minorities through symbolic prosthetics and visual storytelling. It extends the narrative world of his upcoming absurdist body horror film Mascot, which is supported by the Canada Arts Council. A child of Iranian refugees, Maziar brings lived experience and a nuanced voice to some of the most pressing conversations of our time. His work blends cinema, immersive installations, and critical inquiry to provoke thoughtful engagement and cross-cultural dialogue.
Frank Mihelich
Artistic Director, New Threads Theatre Company
Frank Mihelich is a Chattanooga, TN-based actor, director, producer, playwright, and theatre educator with a rich career in Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and regional theatre. He is a founding member of Magis Theatre Company (NYC) and served as founding Producing Director for The Courtyard Shakespeare Festival in Riverside, CA.
Frank holds dual BAs in Communication Arts and Philosophy from California Baptist University and earned his MFA in Acting from Columbia University (NYC). As the founding Artistic Director of New Threads Theatre Company, he is passionate about revitalizing the “Marketplace of Ideas”—creating thought-provoking theatre that sparks meaningful dialogue on society’s most pressing topics. Frank’s work fosters community, conversation, and connection, using theatre as a space to bridge divides and inspire change.
Lou Perez
Comedian
Lou Perez is a comedian, producer, and the author of That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore. You may have seen him on FOX’s Gutfeld! and Open to Debate (with Michael Ian Black). Lou was the head writer and producer of the Webby Award-winning comedy channel We the Internet TV and produces Comedy Is Murder, a sketch comedy series with Free the People. He began his career with the comedy duo Greg & Lou (best known for their viral video “Wolverine’s Claws Suck”). Lou is a FAIR in the Arts fellow, on the advisory board of Heresy Press, and hosts the live debate series The Wrong Take and The Lou Perez Podcast. Lou performs stand-up comedy all over the country, has opened for Rob Schneider, and is currently on tour with Scott Thompson.
Molly Surazhsky
Visual Artist
Molly Surazhsky is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. A child of Ukrainian émigrés, her work examines the ideological tensions between capitalism and communism, propaganda and authenticity, and the personal cost of political dogma. Working across sculpture, textile, and installation, she interrogates these fractures with nuance, satire, and a refusal to conform to prevailing narratives.
Surazhsky is the founder of Call Me Masha, a womenswear brand that merges art with meticulous garment construction. She launched the brand to create independently, free from ideological constraints, and to bring her vision into wearable form. Her solo exhibition “Miss Americhka” at Lowell Ryan Projects (2024) explored contemporary political culture through large-scale installation and sculpture. Across disciplines, Surazhsky challenges the dominant ideological landscape by embracing complexity, rejecting binaries, and restoring beauty in an era of cultural flattening.
Julia Wald
Visual Artist and Writer
Julia Wald is a comics artist, fine artist, and illustrator who hates writing bios. Her work spans everything from large mixed media collages to googly eyed bugs and fish to tiny index card monsters and architectural drawings of all sorts of shapes and dimensions. Everything she does other than the cleanup process is executed by hand with a wide array of materials.
Her editorial illustration work has been published in The Baffler, Current Affairs, The New Republic and The Stranger among others, and her artwork has been shown in galleries across the US, including at Steve Gilbert Studio, Food Art Collection, CoCA Seattle, and the Seattle Emerging Arts Fair. She has won several grants for her comics including a 2019 Artist Trust Seattle Gap Grant and the 2022 Short Run Dash Grant.
Julia was a member-owner of Push/Pull and is a current member of the Society of Illustrators. Originally from Buffalo, NY, she holds degrees in art and chemistry from Buffalo State College. She lived in Seattle, WA for many years before relocating to her current city of Philadelphia, PA with her partner and two cats Winnie and Masha who assist in her artistic process.
Elena Velez
Fashion Designer
Elena Velez is an American fashion designer and entrepreneur from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her work is known for its non-traditional synthesis of metalwork and high fashion. Velez graduated from Parsons School of Design and completed her studies at Central Saint Martins in London. Of Puerto Rican heritage but raised in the rust belt, Velez claims that the industrial nature of her nontraditional upbringing as the only child to a single mother who is a ship’s captain on the Great Lakes influenced her current artistic identity, one which she says draws heavily on the relationship between femininity and force. Her company was subsequently featured in Forbes for its work with Midwestern makers and mission to ‘democratize resources and recognition’ for artists outside of traditional creative capitals.
Velez is the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s 2022 Emerging Designer of the Year, Elle Magazine’s 2023 Women of Impact recognizé, a 2022 Vogue Fashion Fund winner, recipient of the Fashion Trust US Sustainability Award, she is part of the 2023 Dazed 100 list, attended the 2023 Met Gala, and is a semi finalist for the 2024 LVMH Prize. Her work has been acquired by institutions such as the V&A Museum, The Museum at FIT & Pratt Manhattan Gallery.
Runners Up
Seth Clayton
Actor, Musician, Bridge Builder
Project funded: Workshop for Fantasy Musical Comedy about Depolarization (Web Series)
Seth is an actor, musician, and bridge-builder living in Brooklyn, NY. He performs in film, TV, theater, and musicals, and writes and performs indie-rock music. As an actor, he has shared stages and screens with Michael Shannon, Edie Falco, Andre Braugher, David Hyde Pierce, Stephanie Hsu, Ariana DeBose, and Haley Joel Osment. He specializes in new, groundbreaking work and has helped develop over 100 original scripts, plays, and musicals. He has produced two award-winning music videos for his songs MOMENTS! and MY MEDICINE! Seth is a founding member of Pipeline Theatre Company, and in 2020 helped found EV Loves NYC, a nonprofit mutual aid which has since sent over 620,000 meals to underserved neighborhoods of New York City.
Nicholas Cueva
Curator
Nicholas Cueva, born 1983 in Dana Point, California, is an artist currently living and working in Brooklyn. His casual but specific approach to art is conceptually bound into the physicality of space, and the relationship of body to object via the social contract.
Receiving his MFA in Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he moved to New York in 2011, where his constant approach to the evaluation and expansion of visual and material languages of construction and loss have gone on to influence and dialogue the Brooklyn scene. He has had several solo shows in Manhattan and was featured in the documentary film “The Art of Making It” 2021.
Born with a rare and severe heart condition, and undergoing frequent life saving heart surgeries starting at 6 months old, he has dealt with mortality his whole life. His early philosophical approach was initially sated within religious and academic pursuits, but after some concessions and re-evaluating, he fell to using art to wordlessly unpack and aid his, and others, “incomplete” and damaged psychologies, ultimately to create moments of clarity and beauty. nicholascueva.org
Lauren Goldman Marshall
Playwright
Lauren Goldman Marshall is a playwright, librettist/lyricist, director and teaching artist, based in Seattle. Her nationally produced plays and musicals include an award-winning contemporary adaptation of The Misanthrope (premiered at Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland, OR), Abraham’s Land (Theater of Possibility, Kirkland Performance Center) and Fixing Einstein (5th Avenue Theatre new works), among others. Recently she directed Love Letters—A True-Ly Short Epistolary Romance, by and about autistic onspeakers. Lauren holds an MFA in Music Theater writing from NYU and was Producing Artistic Director of Seattle Public Theater from 1993-94 and 1997-2001. She is the founding director of Theater of Possibility, serving neurodivergent youth and young adults, since 2010. As a writer, she is known for showing both sides of a controversy, which has sometimes gotten her into controversy. Abraham’s Land (about Israel and Palestine) and other recent projects can be viewed on YouTube @TheaterofPossibility. See also www.laurenmarshall.com
Kate Rodriguez
Filmmaker
Born and raised in central WA, Kate Rodriguez has always loved art of all forms. Her family encouraged her artistic interests and gave her the idea to shoot her first film. Over the last 12 years she has written, directed, edited and/or produced 16 films and music videos, and assisted on many local indie film sets. Since incorporating Granon Film Productions LLC in 2021, Kate and her business partner Brooke Landis have helped many clients tell their stories through film and podcast work. They are currently in production on a ballroom dance-themed film and pre-production on a sci-fi proof of concept.
Tom Rowan
Playwright
Tom Rowan’s produced plays include Kiss and Cry (GLAAD Media Award Nomination), The Second Tosca, Faye Drummond, David’s Play, and The Blue Djinn (Best Short Play, Fresh Fruit Festival 2014). He has held commissions from The Ensemble Studio Theatre and the Maryland Opera Studio, where his libretto for The Young King (music by Martin Hennessy) was heard in concert in 2017. Tom’s work has been published by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, Smith & Kraus, Next Stage Press, The New York Theatre Experience, and Steele Spring Stage Rights. He has worked as a Literary Manager and Casting Director for various theatre companies, and has directed over 75 productions. In addition to his plays, Tom is the author of the books A Chorus Line FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About Broadway’s Singular Sensation and Rent FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About Broadway’s Blaze of Glory. www.TomRowan.net.
Aleta Valente
Visual Artist & Filmmaker
Aleta Valente (b. 1986) is a Brazilian visual artist living and working in Rio de Janeiro. Her multidisciplinary practice—spanning photography, video, performance, and internet memes—brings urgent social issues to the surface through sharp insight and bold humor. Her work navigates both institutional art spaces and popular digital platforms, engaging critically with how women are represented in the media. Aleta addresses themes such as abortion rights, the right to the city, and censorship in the arts. She is a vocal defender of freedom of expression and challenges ideological conformity through a practice rooted in radical honesty. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and she was recently nominated for the Gabriele Basilico Prize in Architecture and Landscape Photography. Aleta’s artistic voice resonates both in traditional art circuits and in the dynamic space of online cultural debate.
