Emerging Artist Program

The Downtown Festival & Arts Show’s Emerging Artist Program aims to create a pipeline for new talent to access and participate in the juried art show portion of the Downtown Festival & Art Show, Gainesville’s largest street festival and north central Florida’s largest celebration of fine art. Artists who have never shown their work at the Downtown Festival & Art Show before may apply to participate. Selection for this program prioritizes diversity and fresh perspectives, creating intentional space to welcome and celebrate BIPOC artists, immigrant artists, and other underrepresented voices.

Selected 2023 Emerging Artists will receive:

• Application Discount Coupon ($18 value)
• Booth fee waiver ($275 value)
• Participation stipend ($50 cash)
• A borrowed high quality tent & panels to display and sell their work during the festival, shared with an emerging artist cohort of three. ($200+ value).
• The opportunity to show and sell their work, to experience the judging process, and to compete for a cash Emerging Artist Award ($100 cash + automatic invitation to next year's festival for winner)
• Mentorship opportunities that include introductions to local curators and a meeting with a highly successful festival artist to discuss pricing, booth design, and other topics relevant to art fair success. 

To apply, each Emerging Artist must submit three images of their artwork and one image of a grouping of their art (or a booth shot) via Zapplication. Applicants in the Emerging Artist category can contact the festival director to receive a coupon before submitting their application that reduces their application fee by half from from $36 to $18.

Deadline: May 26, 2023

We owe a debt of thanks to the generous community sponsors who helped us launch this program in 2022: Gainesville Fine Arts Association (GFAA) & Gallery, Sequential Artist Workshop (SAW), a private donor, and the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts.