May 18, 2026
New Haven Connecticut
United States
On Monday, the Yale School of Art celebrated its graduating class of 2026 with a commencement address by artist Anna Tsouhlarakis.
The 2026 recipients for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts:
Graphic Design: Izza Alyssa, Gabriella N. Baez, Denzel Boyd, Rebecca Cheng, Ellen Fabini, Amy Fang, Camille J. Gwise, Hana Jelovšek, David Wonsik Jung, Hasti Kasraei, Heejae Kim, Cierra Peters, Michael Stevens, Priscilla Young, Xiwen Zhang, Hongting Zhu.
Painting/Printmaking: aru apaza, Amy Chasse, Yuna Cho, Ian Faden, Mar Figueroa, Kimberly R. Heard, Inkpa Mani, Ambrose Rhapsody Murray, Hazal Özgür, Vernando Reuben, Kiki Serna, Sok Song, Leyla Tonak, Yuwei Tu, Alixe Turner, Faye Wei Wei, Wenqing Zhai.
Photography: Christian Badach, Chen Xiangyun, Jasmine Clarke, Faith Couch, Atefe Moeini, Christopher Postlewaite, Olivia Reavey, John Shen, Em Wall, Andrew Warner.
Sculpture: Amanda Atria, Taisha Carrington, Cameron Patricia Downey, Joy Li, Nabla Mohammad Yahya, Josh Rabineau, Rachel Rosheger, Abenda Sohn, Amy Wang, Shellie Zhang.
The 2026 School of Art Commencement began with Yale’s university-wide commencement exercises on Old Campus in New Haven on Monday, May 18. This event was followed by the Yale School of Art Diploma Ceremony and Reception held at the Yale University Art Gallery.
With their families and friends in attendance, graduates heard addresses from Yale School of Art Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean and Professor of Art Kymberly Pinder and invited commencement speaker Anna Tsouhlarakis.
About commencement speaker Anna Tsouhlarakis
Anna Tsouhlarakis works in sculpture, installation, video, and performance. She received her BA from Dartmouth College with degrees in Native American Studies and Studio Art. She went on to receive her MFA from Yale University in Sculpture. Her work has been part of national and international exhibitions at venues such as NEON Foundation in Athens, Greece; White Frame in Basel, Switzerland; the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art; the National Museum of the American Indian; the National Portrait Gallery; the Ford Foundation Gallery; and a solo exhibition at MCA Denver. She is currently part of the 2026 Whitney Biennial in New York. Tsouhlarakis has participated in various art residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Yaddo, MacDowell, and was the Andrew W. Mellon Artist-in-Residence at Colorado College. She was awarded a Creative Capital Grant in 2021, received a 2022 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, was a 2025 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow and in the summer of 2025, she returned to Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture as Resident Faculty. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and the recipient of this year's Reparative Faculty Fellowship to Address Settler Colonialism. This spring semester she is the Artist-in-Residence at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture. Tsouhlarakis is of Greek descent and an enrolled citizen of the Navajo Nation.
About Yale School of Art
The Yale School of Art provides students with intellectually informed, hands-on instruction in the practice of an array of visual arts media within the context of a liberal arts university. As a part of the first institution of higher learning to successfully integrate a studio-based education into such a broad pedagogical framework, the Yale School of Art has a long and distinguished history of training artists of the highest caliber. A full-time faculty of working artists in conjunction with a diverse cross-section of accomplished visiting artists collaborate to design a program and foster an environment where the unique talents and perspectives of individual students can emerge and flourish.
The school currently offers graduate degrees, and undergraduate-level art courses to Yale College students, in the areas of graphic design, painting/printmaking, photography, and sculpture.
