South Arts 2025 Southern Prize & State Fellowships for Visual Arts
LSU Museum of Art
Baton Rouge
Through Sept. 6
What is Southern art? And what is it saying in 2026?
Those are big questions, perhaps unanswerable.
South Arts attempts to answer at least in part through its Southern Prize & State Fellowships for Visual Arts program. The program celebrates and supports exemplary contemporary art in the American South which they’ve defined to be Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The newly opened exhibition at the LSU Museum of Art, features work from the nine fellows/prize recipients, one from each of the states.
Each of the artists has a distinct style. One might not know the artists going in, but one can definitely tell when they’ve stumbled on another piece from the same artist once inside. A row of wooden portraits by Felicia Greenlee depict Black women in chains. Masela Nkolo’s work reclaims discarded items such as screwdrivers, lanterns and scrap metal to reimagine classical African Art inspired by his growing up and heritage in the Congo.
Walking into the room, the one piece that you can’t help but notice is “Eucharist of Amnesia” (2020) by Gonzalo Fuenmayor, the Florida state fellow. Split into four framed panels, the charcoal forward piece is huge and right in the middle, leaned up against the wall.
At first glance, it’s a ballroom that looks like it could’ve come straight out of Bridgerton with ornate chandeliers and crown moldings, but the more you look at it, the more bizarre the piece reveals itself to be. There’s a floor-to-ceiling wall full of speakers, a large seal doing a handstand that no one depicted in the scene is paying attention to and a huge pile of bananas. The sides of the painting are broken up by bold and clean spray painted lines.
A look at his portfolio online reveals that this is not outside the norm for him. Much of Fuenmayor’s work features seals or bananas and fancy opulent spaces. He writes in an artist statement for the exhibit that in his recent work, “symbols and structures from the past are adopted and interact with opposing tropical elements, providing different ways of assimilating the past and present, as well as challenging expectations about cultural and political realities…”
Fuenmayor has careful attention to detail in a piece that is large enough that people wouldn’t necessarily demand it. The chandelier in the background room is every bit as intricate as the two in the foreground. Light dances in and around “Eucharist of Amnesia,” in a way that feels almost magical, but the shading makes it look like a beautifully captured photograph. The piece brings elements together that one has probably never seen and allows people to sit in confusion (and maybe even discomfort).
