Eighty watercolors on Arches paper · Four ventitych panels, each 7’4″ × 12′6″ · A room enclosed by painted walls, 7’4″ × 50′ running dimension · Washington DC, 2020–2026
The project
DCWall is a monumental watercolor installation of four ventitych panels, each 7’4″ × 12’6″, enclosing a room with a continuous running dimension of 7’4″ × 50′. The eighty individual watercolors — twenty to each panel — have been painted live on-site in Washington DC since September 2020, during two presidential elections, January 6, the razor wire around the Capitol, both inaugurations, and the monuments through every season. Two panels are complete. The remaining two are being painted live in Washington DC during June, July, and August 2026, as the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary on the National Mall. This grant application requests support for the completion and first full documentation of DCWall during this three-month period.
Why now — the 250th anniversary
The summer of 2026 is the single most significant moment in this project’s six-year span. DCWall will be the only live painted witness to both the crisis years of 2020–2021 and the celebratory summer of America’s 250th year. The final two panels, painted during these three months, complete a visual arc that begins with the Ruth Bader Ginsburg memorial at the Supreme Court and ends with the 250th anniversary of the democracy whose institutions fill every painting in between. This arc cannot be completed at any other time.
The artist in Washington DC
From September 2020 to the present, Katherine Dolgy Ludwig has maintained extended working residencies in Washington DC — on Capitol Hill, in Foggy Bottom, in Logan Circle, and in Falls Church, Virginia — living and working in the city for months at a time over six years while painting the DC Reportage Series. There are 450 watercolors in the series. DCWall is drawn from them. The artist returns to Capitol Hill this summer, where the series began in September 2020, to paint the final two panels of DCWall during the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations.
Public benefit
DCWall is a record of Washington DC made in public, for the public, about the most public events of our time. Every painting was made outside, in the street, visible to passersby, in the city that belongs to everyone who lives in and visits it. The completed installation will be sought for permanent museum acquisition and public exhibition. Four works from the broader DC Reportage Series are already on display in a public institutional setting, having been selected by the U.S. Ambassador to Canada for the official Embassy Residence in Ottawa through the State Department’s Artist in Embassies program. The DC Reportage Series — all 450 paintings — is publicly accessible online at no cost, arranged as a walk through the city.
Budget
This grant funds the making of the work — the completion of the final two panels of DCWall during the United States’ 250th anniversary summer in Washington DC. This phase is time-sensitive and cannot be replicated: the summer of 2026 is the specific historical moment the work documents. Framing and exhibition costs will be sought separately, as is standard when a work of this scale is acquired by a museum.
Cash requested — $11,150
Vehicle preparation and maintenance for DC trip — $1,200
Fuel and tolls, Brooklyn to DC and return — $750
Living expenses, food and daily living, 12 weeks — $1,200
Professional photography of four completed panels — $4,000
Printed documentation booklet, 500 copies — $4,000
In-kind contribution — $6,000
Accommodation, Capitol Hill, June–August 2026 — two paintings traded at wholesale value
Total project value — $17,150
The artist
Katherine Dolgy Ludwig is a Brooklyn-based artist who has worked for over thirty years in the United States, Canada, England, and France, maintaining extended working residencies in Washington DC since September 2020. Over twenty solo exhibitions. Recent retrospectives at the American University of Paris and the London Chelsea Arts Club. Work featured in publications such as The New York Times, NYU Humanus, and Los Angeles Times, with honors and fellowships selected by jurors at freeDimensional, A.I.R. Gallery Chelsea, the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, The Brooklyn Rail, NYU Tisch, Art in America, and the London Royal Academy. Her art is in the permanent collections of Mayor Bloomberg, National Arts Club, Pentagon, Playboy, Globe Theatre, Ornette Coleman, and Pete Townshend.