waterfire.accelerate

✨Meet our 2026 WaterFire Accelerate Cohort✨
Amelia Rozear () - Painter & Illustrator ❤️‍🔥

Amelia Rozear is a traditional painter and illustrator based in Providence, RI. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2022, she has pursued her love of traditional art-making through oil paint, watercolor, mixed-media, and rug tufting. Her work engages themes of transformation, pulling elements of a divine “other world” into scenes of girlhood, original narratives, and imagined reality. She is fascinated by the numerous ways narrative illustration has shaped history, and looks forward to publishing graphic novels of her own. Outside of her studio, Amelia can be found sharing her expertise as a teaching artist, editing her art history podcast, or browsing the stacks at the Providence Athenaeum.

Follow these artists’ journeys as they go through this year long WaterFire Accelerate Program, by checking back in on this account to see their progress💪

✨Meet our 2026 WaterFire Accelerate Cohort✨
Yasmine Hassan () - Interdisciplinary Artist❤️‍🔥

Yasmine is an interdisciplinary artist, engineer, and industrial designer from a working-class, tri-cultural household of African immigrants. Informed by this background and influences from music, Black and brown pop culture, animation, DIY and counter-cultural spaces, her practice spans furniture and public design/build projects, woodworking, digital fabrication, mural painting, animation, physical computing, and graphic design. Through community-rooted, narrative-driven work, she explores how public art, participatory placemaking, and accessible technology can spark dialogue, surface overlooked histories, and empower marginalized communities to reshape their environments.

Follow these artists’ journeys as they go through this year long WaterFire Accelerate Program, by checking back in on this account to see their progress💪

✨Meet our 2026 WaterFire Accelerate Cohort✨
Leia Fifer () - Mixed Media Artist❤️‍🔥

Liam Fifer, also known as Leia, is a multidisciplinary artist from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, working in experimental 2D and 3D media including sculpture, collage, and printmaking. Their deeply personal practice explores disability, chronic illness, gender fluidity, and the limits of the body through themes of resilience, spirituality, humor, and connection to the natural and metaphysical world. Liam holds an Associate in Fine Arts from the Community College of Rhode Island and has exhibited work in galleries, community spaces, film festivals, and underground pop-up shows.

Follow these artists’ journeys as they go through this year long WaterFire Accelerate Program, by checking back in on this account to see their progress💪

✨Meet our 2026 WaterFire Accelerate Cohort✨
Pamela Fernández () - Painter & Printermaker❤️‍🔥

Pamela Fernández is a Providence-based interdisciplinary artist. Immigrating at a young age from the Dominican Republic her cultural identity and idea of home have been created from fragments pieced together from her own lived experiences, familial stories and media. She tries to make sense of these puzzle pieces to create one that is authentic to her. Her work embodies trying to put these fragments together to answer and explore her questions about her ancestry, culture and ideas of home and how these have impacted her personal identity and have formed her relationship to the Caribbean-Diaspora at large.

Follow these artists’ journeys as they go through this year long WaterFire Accelerate Program, by checking back in on this account to see their progress💪

✨Meet our 2026 WaterFire Accelerate Cohort✨
Aja Delgado () - Mixed Media Artist❤️‍🔥

Aja Delgado’s practice explores nostalgia, emotional vulnerability, and play through printmaking, painting, collage, textiles, clothing customization, and mixed media. Using vibrant color, shape, and layered processes, her work channels emotion as both a healing and playful act—transforming feeling, memory, and vulnerability into joyful, tactile forms that invite viewers to engage and celebrate emotional openness.

Follow these artists’ journeys as they go through this year long WaterFire Accelerate Program, by checking back in on this account to see their progress💪

The deadline to apply for the 2025-2026 Accelerate Cohort has been extended. Don’t miss out! You have 10 DAYS to apply! 🚨

If you are an artist 30 years old or under in search of a professional development program, we’ve got you covered. WaterFire Accelerate is here to enhance your artistic career by providing you with unique resources and opportunities. Trust us - it’s an experience you won’t want to miss!

Visit waterfire.org/accelerate for more information.