The LSU Museum of Art from now until Sept. 6 is home to the touring South Arts Southern Prize & State Fellowships for Visual Arts exhibition.
Since 2017, the non-profit South Arts has been rewarding artists across the American South with its Southern Prize & State Fellowships program. Each year, a national jury chooses an artist from nine Southern states that most reflects the region from which they are from in their visual art.
The nine selected artists from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee receive a fellowship of $5,000 and a chance to win one of two Southern Prizes.
These Southern Prizes are a first-place prize of $25,000 and a runner-up prize of $10,000; both winners will also get the opportunity to attend a two-week residency at the Hambidge Center. This past year’s prize winners were Tabitha Arnold of Tennessee and Gonzalo Fuenmayor of Florida, winning first and second place, respectively.
Even without winning the grand prizes, artists will get their works featured in a traveling exhibition from January 2026 to January 2027. For the 2025 winners, there are three stops throughout the year, including the LSU Museum of Art at the Shaw Center for the Arts.
Throughout the exhibition, one can witness a wide array of visual art. From Arnold’s mesmerizing tapestries, Fuenmayor’s intricate and imposing charcoal murals to the wood collages of South Carolina’s Felicia Greenlee, there are unique art pieces around every corner.
One artist to look out for is Louisiana’s very own fellowship winner Edgar Cano. Hailing from Veracruz, Mexico, Cano always had an interest in drawing, but he grew up in a town with very little artistic expression.
It was not until he read an article in a magazine highlighting famous Mexican painter Francisco Toledo that he had considered a career in art as a possibility. After finding a degree program at the Universidad Veracruzana, he worked many odd jobs for four years after high school to get into college but Cano was always thinking about art.
“I remember that I keep in mind the idea of ‘keep drawing, keep drawing, keep drawing,’” Cano said.
He applied to college three times before finally getting accepted on his fourth attempt. From then on, he did well in school, got a residency overseas, got engaged to his girlfriend and has been making a career as an artist ever since.
In early 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Cano came to Natchitoches, Louisiana, to pursue a master’s degree in art at Northwestern State University. After driving about 2,500 miles from Mexico City to Natchitoches, he said that the change of setting and culture would be a new direction for his artistic style.
“Thinking of that, I decided to change the subject, or the system, that I was using before, into my painting,” Cano said. “If I decide to change geographically, why I don’t change intellectually, or in the practice of my painting? That’s what I did.”
Before the move, Cano had a very classical style, featuring many realistic nude figures. Coming to Louisiana, he began to be inspired by the loud and bright colors of Mardi Gras and emergency vehicles.
While he may incorporate more traditional elements from previous moments in his life, such as personal photographs and archival images, Cano sees it as important to keep updating his style for wherever he is in his life.
“I am not an artist who sets in one way or in a formula and I stay there all the time. Because for me, that will mean my death,” said Cano. “And I don’t want that because I am a very, very active guy. That’s what I think about me. But what I’m trying to do is move forward every time between lithography, between painting, between drawing.”
He intends to keep moving forward and creating new and challenging art, regardless of where it comes from.
“What I really enjoy about my art is the capability that as a human being, I have to create something from nothing, from zero. To develop an idea, a narrative, a concept into a visual identity,” said Cano.
For more information about the South Arts Southern Prize & State Fellowships for Visual Arts exhibition and Edgar Cano’s art, you can check out the LSU Museum of Art’s website.
