Image: National Academy of Design, New York
The National Academy of Design has announced visual artist Cameron Martin as the recipient of the 2026 National Academy Affiliated Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. The fellowship, known as NAAF, is an eight-week residency awarded annually by the National Academy to a mid-career artist or architect. According to the academy, fellows are chosen for an established record of achievement, the ability to live and work in a community of scholars, musicians, artists and architects, and the suitability of their projects and ideas for making the most of the residency.
The announcement places Martin within a fellowship supported by the National Academy’s Incorporated Edwin Austin Abbey Fund, created through a 1931 bequest by Gertrude Abbey in honor of her husband, Academician and muralist Edwin Austin Abbey NA. The academy said the fund was established to support an artist residency in Italy. No event dates were listed with the announcement, which identifies the fellowship itself rather than a public exhibition or presentation.
Martin’s practice, as described by the academy, centers on paintings with overlapping and undulating forms that use transparencies, patterns and geometries to generate visual effects linked both to non-objective art and to contemporary digital interfaces. Working in a vivid chromatic palette, he uses techniques that intentionally blur distinctions between the handmade and the mechanical, building from abstraction toward possibilities of representation.
The artist’s background combines fine art training with interdisciplinary study. Martin earned a BA from Brown University in Art/Semiotics and continued his studies in the Whitney Independent Study Program. The academy also notes that he has exhibited at venues including the Whitney Museum, Saint Louis Art Museum, The Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the Columbus Museum of Art and City Gallery in Wellington, New Zealand.
The fellowship announcement also situates Martin within a record of professional recognition. The academy said he is a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship and a Pollock-Krasner Award, among others. He is represented by Sikkema Malloy Jenkins in New York and serves as F. H. Sellers Professor in Painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
For the 2026 fellowship, the jury included Tacita Dean NA, Steve DiBenedetto NA, Sarah Oppenheimer NA, Hilary Sample NA and Stephen Westfall NA. The National Academy of Design made the announcement during its 200th anniversary year, noting its long history of advocating for the arts, celebrating the role of artists and architects in public life, and serving as a catalyst for cultural conversations.
The academy also included an image credit for Cameron Martin’s 'Deluge' from 2021, described as acrylic on canvas and measuring 66 x 170 1/2 inches, courtesy of the artist.
