City of West Hollywood Announces 2027 Arts Grant Program Grant Recipients

The City of West Hollywood has announced the recipients for its 2026 Arts Grant Program, totaling $344,000 awarded to 38 new grantees and 10 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 nonprofit 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 our residents.

The City received a total of 151 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, November 2, 2026.

The 2027-2028 SpecialArts Project Grant category is offered to eligible artists and nonprofit arts organizations producing large scale art projects that will take place in West Hollywood and serve the local community between March and September 2028.

This one-time, two-year grant aligns with the City's Creative Plan, which emphasizes artistic excellence, community engagement, and immersive cultural programming during the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Applicants will request two years of funding for one project with development/engagement and implementation phases, and all public facing programming must occur between March and September 2028; compliant grantees will receive the same award amount in 2028. The following applicants are grant recipients for the 2027-2028 Special Arts Project Grant: One Institute, Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles, Tierra del Sol Foundation, The New Arts Foundation, Emer Kinsella, Lena Chen, Blue 13 Dance Company Inc., Dancessence, Inc., Ana-Marija Stojic, Anthony Cardella, NewFilmmakers Los Angeles, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Brockus Project Dance Company, Versa-Style Dance Company, Whitney Weston Stein, and Autumn Breon. More information about the Creative Plan: go.weho.org/creativeplan.

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 2027 in this category include: The Grey Administration, Rogue Machine Theatre, Naomi Bustamante, Dawn Smith, Street Poets Inc., Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, Saint Remy Arts & Culture, Seanna Latiff, and Kindra Windish.

The pilot category Filmmakers Grant is to support filmmakers with funding the exhibition and distribution of their completed film projects. Grant funds may be used for costs related to sharing your finished film with the public, including hiring a distribution or impact consultant, film festival submission fees, marketing materials (posters, trailers, press kits, etc.), and other distribution-related expenses. The grant recipients for 2027 in this category include: Sharzad Kiadeh and Venkatesh Potula.

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 2027 grant recipients in this category are: Plead the Fifth, Yozmit The DogStar, Trans Stories, Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, Jordin Dearinger, and Mars Wright.

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 2027 are: Toi'ya Leatherwood, Matthew Scott Montgomery, Sean Hemeon, Amy Stretten, and Dan Monteavaro.

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: West Coast Singers, Greenway Arts Alliance, Pride Poets, Banjee Ball Foundation, Helix Collective, LA Contemporary Exhibitions, Heidi Duckler Dance, Prism Comics, MashUp Contemporary Dance, and Southeast European Film Festival.

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 Nonprofit 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 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 dial 711 or 1-800-735-2929 (TTY) or 1-800-735-2922 (voice) for California Relay Service (CRS) assistance.

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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].