(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

Some artists find their medium early and never look back. Nathalia Toledo Barcia is not one of them — and that is precisely what makes her work extraordinary.

The 2026 Coconut Grove Arts Festival “Best in Show” winner came to ceramics and painting through one of the most unconventional paths in the contemporary art world: classical piano training, advertising agency work, printmaking in Argentina, textile arts in Indonesia, sacred painting in India, and extended time living and learning in the Amazon Rainforest. Her practice was not simply influenced by global traditions — it was forged by them.

Welcome to The Independent Artist Podcast with your hosts Douglas and Will — the show where we pull back the curtain on the real life of working artists. 

Fresh off winning Best in Show at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival, Ecuadorian artist Nathalia Toledo Barcia joins us for a deeply moving conversation about culture, soul, and the stories embedded in her work.

Nathalia’s art lives at the intersection of painting and porcelain—where delicate surfaces become artifacts of memory and identity. Drawing from her Ecuadorian heritage, her paintings carry the visual language of her culture while her porcelain forms feel like relics of something timeless, as if they’ve been unearthed from a personal mythology.