FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 4, 2026
Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Alia Muhayminn, Marketing & Graphic Design Coordinator
amuhaymin@ogdenmusem.org 504.539.9604 //www.ogdenmuseum.org/
Ogden Museum of Southern Art Announces Award Winners of 2026 Louisiana Contemporary, presented by The Helis Foundation
Awards go to Nathalia Toledo Barcia, Pamela Skehan, Owen Canter and Farah Billah
The Helis Foundation Art Prize for Best in Show: Nathalia Toledo Barcia, Ekeko in Custody, 2026, Hand built porcelain sculpture, glazes, underglazes, plastic, rubber, wood, metal, paper, currency, straw, cotton and strings, 15.8 x 7.9 x 9.5 inches, Collection of the artist
(NEW ORLEANS, LA) – Ogden Museum of Southern Art is pleased to announced the award winners for the 2026 edition of Louisiana Contemporary, presented by The Helis Foundation. Now on view through February 14, 2027, the Museum’s annual juried exhibition features 50 works by 45 Louisiana artists, including 28 artists participating for the first time.
The 2026 guest juror, Sarah Jones, Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang Head of Live Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, selected the following artists to receive awards:
• The Helis Foundation Art Prize for Best in Show: Nathalia Toledo Barcia, Ekeko in Custody, 2026, Hand built porcelain sculpture, glazes, underglazes, plastic, rubber, wood, metal, paper, currency, straw, cotton and strings
• First Place: Pamela Skehan, Tipping Point, 2025, Oil on canvas | Woman in Waiting, 2025, Acrylic on canvas
• Second Place: Owen Canter, Self Portrait at Longue Vue House, 2025, Graphite drawing on paper | Lament for the Death of a Bull, 2026 Oil on canvas, Duralar, IKEA lamp shade, wooden base, rotating display stand
• Third Place: Farah Billah, The Table, with Friends, 2026, Oil on canvas
With support from The Helis Foundation, Ogden Museum honors these four artists who highlight some of the most compelling works in the exhibition. The four awards come with grants and special recognition at the Museum. Nathalia Toledo Barcia, the recipient of the lead award, The Helis Foundation Art Prize, will receive an unrestricted grant of $5,000.
Juror Sarah Jones shares, “It was impossible to make a selection of works that felt representative of Louisiana artists. The submissions in total evoked for me what I love most about the South: bold creative expression. They grappled with various topics; among those that left the biggest imprint for me were a reckoning with ecological and societal precarity, an interrogation of and insistence on identity, and the power of place that is Louisiana. They also prompted radical provocations of joy through their beauty and skill.”
The full roster of 2026 artists include:
• Nathalia Toledo Barcia (Mandeville, LA)
• Donald Beale (Baton Rouge, LA)
• Erin Bennett (Carencro, LA)
• Thom Bennett (Jefferson, LA)
• Farah Billah (New Orleans, LA)
• Josiah Bolth (New Orleans, LA)
• Marcus Brown (New Orleans, LA)
• Ryan Burns (New Orleans, LA)
• Owen Canter (New Orleans, LA)
• Kate Citrin (New Orleans, LA)
• Tai Collins (New Orleans, LA)
• James Constantine (New Orleans, LA)
• Justine Crowley (New Orleans, LA)
• Margaret Davis (New Orleans, LA)
• Emily Ezell (Ruston, LA)
• Brandon Felix (New Orleans, LA)
• Sarita Fonseca (New Orleans, LA)
• Lizz Freeman (New Orleans, LA)
• Jessica Goldfinch (New Orleans, LA)
• Jennifer Graycheck (New Iberia, LA)
• Brandon Holland (New Orleans, LA)
• William Howell (Mandeville, LA)
• André Hubbard (New Orleans, LA)
• Giani Jones (New Orleans, LA)
• Kay Breaux Livaudais (Metairie, LA)
• Sara Madandar (New Orleans, LA)
• Kristin Meyers (New Orleans, LA)
• Joshua Mintz (New Orleans, LA)
• Jacob Mitchell (New Orleans, LA)
• Madeline Monlezun (Mandeville, LA)
• Coby Naquin (Baton Rouge, LA)
• Adam Newman (New Orleans, LA)
• Emi O’Brochta (New Orleans, LA)
• DeShawn Oravetz (New Orleans, LA)
• Pablo Perez-Castroman (Baton Rouge, LA)
• Tyler Russell (New Orleans, LA)
• Pamela Skehan (Metairie, LA)
• Billy Solitario (New Orleans, LA)
• Alexander Stolin (Madisonville, LA)
• Trenity Thomas (Westwego, LA)
• Angela Lynn Tucker (New Orleans, LA)
• Catherine Walker (New Orleans, LA)
• Sydney Walker (New Orleans, LA)
• Tom Walton (New Orleans, LA)
• Antonia Zennaro (New Orleans, LA)
Ogden Museum first launched Louisiana Contemporary in 2012 to celebrate artists living in Louisiana and showcase the vitality of artistic practice across the state. Since the inaugural exhibition 14 years ago, the Museum has presented work by more than 650 artists, establishing Louisiana Contemporary as a key moment on the national arts calendar that recognizes and celebrates the breadth of creative voices emerging from New Orleans and arts communities throughout Louisiana.
Louisiana Contemporary is largely made possible by presenting sponsor, The Helis Foundation.
About Nathalia Toledo Barcia
Born in Ecuador, a plurinational country, Nathalia Toledo became interested in the pursuit of ancestral knowledge – not only about culture, traditions, and arts and crafts – but also the myths and rituals of primal nations. Toledo appreciates the deep connection indigenous people still maintain with Mother Earth and learned the wisdom of Aents, a word in Shuar (the language of the Shuar Nation from the Amazon) that affirms how everything is alive: humans, animals, supernatural beings, plants and objects.
The illumination produced by this multicultural dialogue through diverse visions and knowledge is what she reflects in her work. Her hope is that one day her artifacts can survive the transition of time and that, preferring art to dialogue, she could awaken feelings, evoke the past of useful art and sustain the future of art in service to the universal spirit.
About Sarah Jones
Sarah Jones is the Lulu C. and Anthony W. Wang Head of Live Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She oversees the department and its programming, which presents and commissions works of performance, including music, dance, related hybrids, and site-specific projects, often in collaboration with the Museum’s Collection and Exhibitions. Her innovative methods to deepening audience engagement with visual art has been pivotal in expanding how the Museum embraces the live, the experimental, and the urgent. Previously she acted as Chief of Staff and Director of Public Programs at Gagosian. In 2018, she established and led the gallery’s department overseeing global public programming and performance commissions, collaborating with artists including Kyle Abraham, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, Aaron Diehl, Missy Mazzoli, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Reiner, Jason Moran, Samora Pinderhughes, Vernon Reid, Raphael Saadiq, Isabella Summers, Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, and John Zorn, among others. A trusted leader and strategist, Sarah helped shape the gallery’s approach to performance, artist relations, and storytelling across global exhibitions and special projects. She is a 2025 Lunder Institute for American Art Fellow and she serves as President of the Board of Directors of The Kitchen, is a Board Member of ISCP and is in Performance Space New York’s Visionary Circle.
About Ogden Museum of Southern Art
Located in the vibrant Warehouse Arts District of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana since 1999 and open to the public since 2003, Ogden Museum of Southern Art invites visitors to experience and learn about the art and culture of the American South. Ogden Museum is home to a collection with over five thousand works, making it the largest publicly available and most comprehensive repository dedicated to Southern art in the nation, with particular strength in the genres of Self-Taught art, Regionalism, Photography and Contemporary Art. The Museum is further recognized for its original exhibitions, public events and educational programs, which examine the development of visual art alongside Southern traditions of music, literature, culinary heritage and craft and design.
Ogden Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Museum is located at 925 Camp Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130. For more information visit ogdenmuseum.org or call 504.539.9650.