CINCINNATI, OH.- The Taft Museum of Art has selected visual artist Ayana Ross as the 2026 Duncanson Artist-in-Residence. The award-winning residency is known for its competitive application and review process. The 40th anniversary celebrates the program’s long-standing cultural significance, elevating the profile of contemporary artists across a variety of disciplines. Ross’s residency will include an exhibition of her work at the Taft Museum of Art as well as engagement with the community, leading public programs, teaching workshops, and visiting schools across Greater Cincinnati in spring 2026.


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“For four decades, the Duncanson Program has honored the enduring legacy of Robert S. Duncanson by uplifting artists whose work challenges, inspires, and transforms. As we celebrate this milestone, we reflect on the artists who have shaped our cultural landscape and look ahead with pride and purpose to the next generation of creative visionaries.”— Kareem Simpson, Taft Museum of Art Duncanson Program manager.

Ayana Ross is a visual artist whose work combines traditional oil painting methods, using figurative realism, with the elaborate treatment of patterns and decorative design as a visual language to evoke nostalgia, elevate her subjects, and provide greater context into her work. Often autobiographical in nature, Ross's paintings employ layered narratives from past and present to examine social issues, such as identity, race, equity, and a general assessment of value systems, while aiming to illuminate the greater lessons that can be learned from everyday people and moments.

Ross holds a Master of Arts degree in painting from Savannah College of Art and Design (2021) and a Master of Arts degree in liberal arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2014). She has been recognized as the 2021 winner of The Bennett Prize, the 2022 recipient of the National Black Art Festival Award in visual arts, the Pittsburgh Foundation’s Eben Demarest Fund Award in 2024, and was a 2024 Mellon Arts & Practitioner Fellow through the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration.

Established in 1986 by the Taft Museum of Art and the Robert S. Duncanson Society, the award-winning Duncanson Program honors the achievements of contemporary artists working in a variety of disciplines—year-round—including the annual Duncanson Artist-in-Residence each spring. The program honors the relationship between Black American painter Robert S. Duncanson and his patron, Nicholas Longworth, who commissioned Duncanson to paint landscape murals in the foyer of his home about 1850–52, now the Taft Museum of Art.

Many nationally and internationally acclaimed artists spanning an array of fields have been selected for the residency. This includes visual and performance artist Vanessa German, choreographer Stafford Berry, and the esteemed poet Nikki Giovanni (the inaugural Duncanson Artist-in-Residence in 1986).