Summerfair Cincinnati has named the 2026 Aid to Individual Artists (AIA) Award winners.
The 2026 AIA Awards winners are:
• Katie Desmond
• Kat Rakel-Ferguson
• JeeEun Lee
• Gabrielle Siekman
• Jan Wiesner
• Mark Wiesner
This AIA program is designed to assist individual visual artists in the creation of new works and aid the artists' career development. Each artist receives a $5,000 grant from Summerfair. The AIA award recipients are also invited to showcase their work in the next “Summerfair Select” exhibit.
About the artists:
Katie Desmond is a watercolor artist who paints with nature's palette. After almost 20 years in corporate America, she was looking for a creative outlet. Leaned into her knowledge of flowers gained from a teenage job at a greenhouse, finding beauty in the details of painting botanical watercolors.
Kat Rakel-Ferguson is a mtultimedia artist, photographer, and veteran art educator, teaching at the University of Cincinnati, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and Sycamore High School. Her workrevolves around mixed photographic media, frequently exploring themes of personal transition, vulnerability, and historical elements.
JeeEun Lee, born and raised in South Korea, has been an exhibiting artist for 20 years. She received her B.F.A. & M.F.A. in Sculpture at Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea and moved to the U.S in 2010, where she earned a second M.F.A degree (2013) at Syracuse University, New York.While clay is her primary medium, her work includes large-scale installations with mixed media, sculpture, public art, and functional objects.
Gabrielle Siekman earned her BFA in painting from Northern Kentucky University’s School Of The Arts in 2019.She has worked on several indoor and outdoor public art projects and murals in the region. Siekman teaches painting and drawing courses at Baker Hunt Art and Cultural Center in Covington.
Jan and Mark Wiesner worked as art educators for 39 years and now share a studio space as sculptors. Jan is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, DAAP where she received her BFA. She served as an Art Teacher for the King & Low-Heywood Thomas School in Stanford, Connecticut as well as teaching at the Seven Hills School here in Cincinnati. Mark is a graduate of Edgecliff College where he received his BA with a concentration in Art and he went on to receive a Masters from the Athenaeum of Ohio in Religious Studies. In 2005 he received the State Middle School Art Teacher of the Year Award from the Ohio Art Education Association and in 2015 he received the State High School Art Teacher of the Year Award.
