The Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans has announced the artists who have received awards as part of Louisiana Contemporary, its annual juried exhibition featuring work by contemporary artists from across the state. Each year, with support from the Helis Foundation, the museum presents awards to four artists. This year’s recipients are Jessica Strahan, Sarrah Danziger, Rachel David, and Thomas Deaton.
The artists were chosen to represent Louisiana from a pool of 364 applicants by guest juror David Breslin, who was recently promoted to director of curatorial initiatives at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and will each receive modest monetary awards of up to $5,000. The 2019 edition of the exhibition features a total of twenty-three artists and forty-four artworks—spanning painting, photography, sculpture, works on paper, and mixed-media installation—and will be on view until January 5, 2020.
“Louisiana Contemporary provides an essential ongoing platform to discover and experience the depth and diversity of work being produced by Louisiana artists, in support of our wider mission to connect audiences with and widen understanding of art of the American South,” said William Pittman Andrews, executive director of the Ogden Museum. “Each year, we are inspired by the visions and innovations of the featured artists, whose work engages with formal and conceptual dialogues within contemporary practice, as well as with some of the most pressing social and political issues of our time.”