Ogden Museum of Southern Art Announces Award Winners of 2025 Louisiana Contemporary, presented by The Helis Foundation Grants will go to Karen Ocker, Joelle Nagy, Kahlil McKnight and Sally Heller

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The Helis Foundation Art Prize for Best in Show: Karen Ocker, Temple of the Innocent Blood, 2023, Oil painting on board, upholstery fabric, reclaimed wood, spindle, cast iron grate and trombone parts, 38 x 24.5 x 7.5 inches, Collection of the artist

 

(NEW ORLEANS, LA) – Ogden Museum of Southern Art announced today the awards selected for the 2025 edition of Louisiana Contemporary, presented by The Helis Foundation, now on view at the Museum through January 4, 2026. Louisiana Contemporary, presented by The Helis Foundation, is the Museum’s annual juried exhibition. This year’s showcase features 53 works by 50 artists from 1,421 submissions.

The 2025 guest juror, Daniel S. Palmer, Chief Curator at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum of Art, has selected the following artists to receive awards:

  • The Helis Foundation Art Prize for Best in Show: Karen Ocker, Temple of the Innocent Blood, 2023, Oil painting on board, upholstery fabric, reclaimed wood, spindle, cast iron grate and trombone parts | A Bright Day Ahead, 2025, Oil painting on board, framed with reclaimed wood and cast-iron sewing machine parts | Olympia, 2025, Oil painting on board, framed with reclaimed wood, spindles and trombone and cymbal parts
  • First Place: Joelle Nagy, Twin Vigil, 2025, Oil on canvas
  • Second Place: Kahlil McKnight, Suit Up, 2024, Oil on canvas
  • Third place: Sally Heller, In Mid-Air, 2025, Video

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. Karen Ocker, the recipient of the lead award, The Helis Foundation Art Prize, will receive an unrestricted grant of $5,000. In addition to these four artists, both Andre’ Hubbard and William Willoughby have been recognized with honorable mentions.

Juror Daniel S. Palmer shares, “I was absolutely blown away by the nearly 1,500 artworks submitted to this year’s Louisiana Contemporary, presented by The Helis Foundation open call! What an inspiring outpouring of creative excellence. There was a massive range of inventive approaches, and every artwork I reviewed reflected the incredible sense of beauty and community that thrives in this singular place. I hope that the selection on display at Ogden Museum encourages visitors to keep searching out the vibrancy that exists all around them. Above all, the passionate dedication of every artist in this state should inspire the rest of the world to take note!”

The full roster of 2025 artists include:

  • Vee Adams (New Orleans, LA)
  • Natalie Armstrong (West Monroe, LA)
  • Jourdan Barnes (New Orleans, LA)
  • Megan Barra (Lafayette, LA)
  • Erin Bennett (Carencro, LA)
  • Jessica Bertsch (New Orleans, LA)
  • Courtney Buckley (New Orleans, LA)
  • Annelise Kristine Contini (New Orleans, LA)
  • Dartanya Croff (New Orleans, LA)
  • Brandon Felix (New Orleans, LA)
  • Laura Gipson (New Orleans, LA)
  • Ronna S. Harris (New Orleans, LA)
  • Lois Hébert (Baton Rouge, LA)
  • Sally Heller (New Orleans, LA)
  • Deniz Türkoğlu Hewes (New Orleans, LA)
  • André Hubbard (New Orleans, LA)
  • Kathryn Hunter (Baton Rouge, LA)
  • Susan Ireland (New Orleans, LA)
  • Jeremy Jernegan (New Orleans, LA)
  • Miles B. Jordan (New Orleans, LA)
  • Mary J. Kirsch (Mandeville, LA)
  • Frahn Koerner (New Orleans, LA)
  • Lily LaGrange (New Orleans, LA)
  • Diego Larguia (New Orleans, LA)
  • Katie LaRocca (New Orleans, LA)
  • Andrew Liles (New Orleans, LA)
  • Katie McCall (New Orleans, LA)
  • Monette McCullough (Baton Rouge, LA)
  • Bridget McEnerney (New Orleans, LA)
  • Khalil McKnight (Ponchatoula, LA)
  • Joelle Nagy (Baton Rouge, LA)
  • Dominick Navarra (New Orleans, LA)
  • Dung “Donkey” Nguyen (Avondale, LA)
  • Nikki Nolan (New Orleans, LA)
  • Karen Ocker (New Orleans, LA)
  • Rhett Pritchard (Chalmette, LA)
  • Matthew Rosenbeck (New Orleans, LA)
  • Taylor Sacco (New Orleans, LA)
  • Katie Singleton (Folsom, LA)
  • Melissa Smith (New Orleans, LA)
  • Billy Solitario (New Orleans, LA)
  • Alice St. Germain (New Orleans, LA)
  • Holly Sutherlin (New Orleans, LA)
  • Lue Svendson (Lafayette, LA)
  • Whitney Tates (Shreveport, LA)
  • Trenity Thomas (Westwego, LA)
  • Emery Tillman (New Orleans, LA)
  • Paige Valente (New Orleans, LA)
  • Natalie Vitrano (Jefferson, LA)
  • William Willoughby (Baton Rouge, LA)

Ogden Museum first launched Louisiana Contemporary in 2012 to engage artists living in Louisiana and to highlight the dynamism of art practice throughout the state. Since the inaugural exhibition 13 years ago, Ogden Museum has shown works by over 600 artists, making Louisiana Contemporary an important moment in the national arts calendar to recognize and experience the spectrum and vitality of artistic voices emanating from New Orleans and art communities across Louisiana.

Louisiana Contemporary is made possible by presenting sponsor, The Helis Foundation.

About Karen Ocker

Karen Ocker has exhibited her work widely throughout New Orleans during the past decade. She was awarded the South Arts Louisiana State fellowship prize in 2020. Ocker was invited to exhibit her work in Southern Voices / Global Visions exhibition curated by Eleanor Heartney and Dr. Amalia Amaki in 2023. Her work has been included in exhibits at Ogden Museum of Southern Art, McKenna Museum of African American Art, the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, Creative Alliance of New Orleans (CANO) and the New Orleans Museum of Art. In addition, her work has been included in exhibits at Second Story Gallery, Ariodante Gallery, the Arts Council of New Orleans Gallery, Jazz and Heritage Gallery and the New Orleans Art Center. She has also exhibited her work at New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival for the past 16 years. Her work appeared in publications including the 2006 New York Whitney Museum Biennial Catalog and is included in the permanent collection of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, Blues Hall of Fame (Memphis, TN) and Luciano Benetton’s collection in Italy.

About Daniel S. Palmer

 Daniel S. Palmer is chief curator at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia. Previously, he was curator at Public Art Fund, New York, where he organized twenty exhibitions. He has also served as the Leon Levy Assistant Curator at the Jewish Museum and Curatorial Research Assistant at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Palmer has curated numerous exhibitions independently and has contributed writing to many artist monographs, publications and journals. He holds a Ph.D. and M.Phil in art history from the CUNY Graduate Center and a B.A. from Rutgers University.

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 artists and culture of the American South. Ogden Museum is home to a collection with almost 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.

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