Latino arts center The Clemente names inaugural Van Lier fellowship recipients

Jesús Hilario-Reyes and Tichacoco have been named as the inaugural recipients of a new fellowship for young adult Latino artists by The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center in New York.

The Van Lier Fellowship will provide resources including studio space at the center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and a $20,000 stipend to two New York-based artists between the ages of 18 and 30.

Libertad Guerra, the executive director of The Clemente Center, said the fellowship aims to provide support to artists “at pivotal moments in their career.”

“Their artistic practices embody The Clemente’s commitment to expanding cultural and civic life by supporting bold, experimental, and community-engaged artists,” Guerra said of Tichacoco and Hilario-Reyes.

“I trust that they will benefit from the studio space in our historic building, and access to our network of curators, diversity of artists, and urban thinkers.”

The Clemente Center also said that the artists will have opportunity to participate in its citywide Historias initiative and contribute to its Nueva York Chronicles digital archive.

Hilario-Reyes and Tichacoco both focus on identity, community, and environment, according to The Clemente Center.

Tichacoco is a Brooklyn-based artist who draws on their Salvadoran background, using performance, poetry and sculpture to explore memory, displacement and Indigenous and rural communities. They studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and have worked as a curator and museum educator.

Hilario-Reyes, who studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Yale, looks at shared experiences, especially within queer communities, often using nightlife and environmental themes as a starting point. Their work includes installation, sculpture and performance.

Together, their work will appear in the 2026 Historias Reveladas building-wide exhibition, followed by their first major two-person show in The Clemente’s newly renovated galleries in late 2027.

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