Midtown Houston is continuing its investment in Houston’s creative community through the 2026 MidtownHOU Arts Micro Grants Program. We’re excited to announce the 2026 Cycle 1 Micro Grant awardees, supporting local artists and arts organizations who are bringing new creative work and community-driven projects to life in Midtown.
As a vibrant, connected district at the heart of Houston, Midtown believes artists play a vital role in shaping the places where people gather, reflect, and engage. Through the MidtownHOU Arts Micro Grants Program, the district continues to support bold ideas that activate public space, celebrate culture, and invite the community to experience Midtown in new ways.
Through the end of 2025, Midtown has invested $118,000 in public art projects through the Micro Grants Program, supporting local artists and arts organizations while helping bring creative placemaking initiatives to life across the district. In 2026, Midtown is increasing its support for Houston artists through $120,000 in approved arts funding, which is shared between the MidtownHOU Arts Micro Grants Program and the Artist in Residence grant. Together, these opportunities represent Midtown’s ongoing investment in public art, creative placemaking, and community-centered cultural experiences.
To make these opportunities more accessible, Midtown also launched a new Artist Opportunities board, creating a centralized place for open calls, grant cycles, and public art opportunities across the district.
2026 Cycle 1 Awardees
This cycle’s awardees reflect the energy, diversity, and creativity that define Midtown Houston. From interactive public art and bold visual storytelling to movement-based performances rooted in nature and place, these projects will help transform everyday spaces into moments of connection, reflection, and discovery.
Cycle 1 Individual Artist Awardees
Each of these artists brings a distinct creative voice to the 2026 program, using their practice to activate space, spark dialogue, and deepen community connection in Midtown.
Angel Albarran – Signs of Play
Houston-born multidisciplinary designer Angel Albarran brings a thoughtful, public-facing approach to creative work, with experience spanning graphic design, illustration, and environmental and spatial graphics. Their practice centers on visual communication as a tool for connection, accessibility, and shared understanding across cultures and communities.
Albarran’s project, Signs of Play, transforms Midtown into a playable public landscape through a series of sculptural, QR-enabled markers placed in parks, plazas, and pedestrian corridors. Each sign invites participants to engage in short, site-responsive challenges that encourage observation, rest, reflection, or light social interaction. The project functions as both public artwork and wayfinding, layering creativity into the everyday experience of moving through Midtown.
Each cluster of signs leads to a Community Chest, where participants can take home artist-designed keepsakes and contribute written reflections of their own. Rooted in play, participation, and connection, the project creates an evolving exchange between artist, place, and community. By activating shared spaces in an accessible and interactive way, Signs of Play reflects Midtown’s commitment to walkability, discovery, and meaningful public experiences.
Alexandre Serty
Known professionally as Serty31, Alexandre Serty is a Paris-born visual artist and pioneer of the Graffuturism movement whose work merges urban art, graphic abstraction, architectural intervention, and immersive design. With more than three decades of artistic practice, Serty has developed an internationally recognized visual
language built through dynamic vector lines, geometric structures, and luminous chromatic gradients.
Influenced by graffiti culture, architecture, graphic design, and 1980s mecha animation, Serty’s work reimagines infrastructure and built surfaces as living, kinetic canvases. His large-scale compositions explore the transformation of space through color, rhythm, and movement, creating visual experiences that shift the way people engage with their surroundings. His work has been exhibited internationally and includes collaborations with global brands and presentations during major art events.
Through his Midtown project, GUM + (Graphic Urban Modulation), Serty will transform an existing concrete structure into a luminous architectural installation in Midtown Houston. The project integrates chrome finishes and vertical fluorescent tube elements arranged in a progressive chromatic gradient, creating a dynamic dialogue between infrastructure and light. By activating the space during the day through reflective surfaces and at night through UV illumination, the installation reimagines public infrastructure as an experiential design landmark. The work invites pedestrians to experience Midtown through color, rhythm, and spatial transformation in a bold new way.
Brandon Jerrod
Houston-born emerging multidisciplinary artist Brandon Jerrod is an artist, photographer, facilitator, and spiritual practitioner whose work centers storytelling, collective care, and public dialogue. Their practice blends documentary photography, film, wellness facilitation, and guided conversation to transform everyday spaces into intentional sites of reflection and belonging.
Rooted in a background spanning community outreach, education, and cultural work, Brandon approaches art through a people-centered lens that prioritizes accessibility, emotional safety, and community voice. Their work uplifts narratives often marginalized in public space, particularly within Black, LGBTQ+, and disabled communities, while creating participatory experiences where lived experience becomes both medium and message.
For Midtown, Brandon’s project, I Am / We, will take shape as a public arts activation and filmed community gathering in Midtown Houston. Blending guided meditation, reflective journaling, facilitated dialogue, and a filmed panel, the project explores how identity shapes belonging and collective care. Community members will be invited to share personal reflections on what it means to exist as both an individual and part of a larger whole. The event will culminate in a short documentary-style film and digital content that extends the project’s reach beyond the live gathering, creating a living archive of Midtown voices.
D. “Kid Styles” Murray
D. “Kid Styles” Murray is a highly sought-after artist known for his signature airbrushing style, blending bold creativity with technical mastery across multiple
mediums. Born and raised in Detroit, Kid Styles gained early recognition in the 1990s while touring with hip-hop legend MC Lyte, where he built his brand through custom artwork on denim jackets, hoodies, sneakers, and more. His vibrant style quickly earned attention from artists across the music industry.
That momentum led to a major opportunity with Houston’s J. Prince at Rap-A-Lot Records, where he served as Senior Graphic Designer and expanded his influence across Southern hip-hop visual culture. His work has helped shape the creative identity of record labels, artists, and brands, while his broader practice continues to span graphic design, street art, abstract works, fine art, live airbrushing, and contemporary hip-hop art.
Now based in Houston, Kid Styles continues to create through Kid Styles Graphics and Kid Styles 2nd Nature Design Studio, where he brings decades of experience, originality, and visual energy to each new project. For his Midtown project, he will transform a prominent wall into a bold, culturally driven mural celebrating creativity and community. Designed in his signature airbrush and graphic style, the artwork will feature vibrant color, layered detail, and dynamic movement that reflect the energy of Houston. The mural will serve as a visual landmark and gathering point, inspiring pride while enhancing Midtown’s public landscape.
Cycle 1 Arts Organization Awardee
Midtown’s Micro Grants Program also supports arts organizations whose work expands access to creative experiences and invites the public into meaningful, place-based engagement.
Houston Met Dance – Nature Stories: TerraForm(ed) Collective
Houston Met Dance is the 2026 Cycle 1 Arts Organization Awardee, bringing a movement-based experience to Midtown through Nature Stories by the TerraForm(ed) Collective. This project uses dance and individual stories as a way to explore the value of protecting local ecology while inviting the public to reflect on their relationship to the natural environment.
Taking place on April 18, 2026, at 3 p.m. in Midtown Park (2811 Travis St), the collective will perform Nature Stories in conjunction with National Water Dance. Across the nation, participating groups will bring attention to the fragility of our waters and move
with one voice in support of responsible stewardship of the Earth. In Midtown, the performance will guide the public through the park, and community members will be invited to add their own “Nature Stories” to a chalkboard in response to the dance they are witnessing.
Free and open to the public, Nature Stories creates a meaningful connection between movement, place, and environmental reflection, bringing people together in Midtown Park for an experience rooted in ecology, creativity, and community.
Bringing Art to the Community
The MidtownHOU Arts Micro Grants Program is rooted in the belief that art should be visible, accessible, and woven into the everyday life of the district. Whether through interactive signage, large-scale visual transformation, storytelling, or movement-based performance, the 2026 Cycle 1 awardees represent the kind of creative thinking that helps Midtown remain vibrant, welcoming, and deeply connected to the people who live, work, and gather here.
As these projects take shape, they will continue to add new layers of creativity and community engagement to Midtown’s public spaces, reinforcing the district’s role as a place where culture, connection, and urban life come together.
Cycle 2 opens later this year. Visit the Artist Opportunities Board for upcoming deadlines and program details.
