New Orleans

ACADEMY of FINE ARTS

Our Purpose

The Academy offers an engaging and diverse curriculum that explores the foundations of the fine arts as well as new and engaging explorations in the visual arts. Our faculty are masters in their craft and through lecture, studio study, and artistic creation our students engage in essential explorations that are both rigorous and relaxing.

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Creative Campers

Register your aspiring artist for a week (or more) of engaging and immersive Camp and help them to foster their creativity through the exploration of painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, and more. Campers will also take part in artists' workshops, talks, and collaborative installations in our professional gallery space.

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Featured Event

The Academy has literally and figuratively opened its doors to the city of New Orleans. We invite you to explore the opportunities to spend time on our campus and in our galleries.

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The New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts Pattern

"A Tale of Two Cities" Opening

Sep

13

Reception

"A Tale of Two Cities" Opening

Sep 13

,

5:00 pm

-

Sep 13

,

8:00 pm

UTF-4

New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts

See event details

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The Academy

As a non-profit, it is our goal to enrich lives, encourage creativity, and help others to appreciate art by providing a nurturing environment for engaging education and personal enjoyment. We believe our work will preserve, sustain, and enhance the legacy in the visual arts for New Orleans and beyond. We need your support to make it so.

News Feed

Check out our latest posts that highlight the dynamic activities and important updates at The New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts.

Jun 27, 2025

Jun 27, 2025

Ready to Roll: New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts Launches Academy on Wheels

The New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts celebrates the launch of its mobile art studio, the Academy on Wheels, which aims to reach New Orleans youth with dynamic art programming, free of charge, beginning in Fall 2025.

Jun 18, 2025

Jun 18, 2025

New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts Announces "A Tale of Two Cities"

The New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts joins with Asheville-based ArtsvilleUSA and River Arts District Artists to produce and showcase “A Tale of Two Cities,” an exhibition exploring the role of art in the wake of environmental disaster, on display at NOAFA, September 13 through November 8, 2025.

May 14, 2025

May 16, 2025

NOAFA Celebrates Successful Student Exhibition 2025

On Saturday, May 10, 2025, the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts (NOAFA) welcomed hundreds of attendees to its Uptown New Orleans campus for its Student Exhibition 2025, an annual art exhibition consisting only of work from its student body from the last academic year.

Apr 22, 2025

Apr 22, 2025

The Academy Announces "Paint the Pavement" Event

On Thursday, April 24, 2025, the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts will partner with the Urban Conservancy and Depave to host “Paint the Pavement,” a community event designed to develop a vision for new greenspace at the school’s Uptown New Orleans campus.

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Our Faculty

Our faculty are talented artists and excellent teachers. While some faculty have been with the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts for over 30 years, others are just beginning their tenure. Each faculty member brings a unique vision and style to the classroom.

Aimee Farnet Siegel

Aimee Farnet Siegel

Non-objective artist Aimée Farnet Siegel works with color and line through the medium of hand painted and manipulated paper. Her works inhabit space outside the two dimensional plain of paint on canvas, have a depth beyond collage and are closer in nature to assemblage.

Alex Beard

Alex Beard

American painter and author Alex Beard is best known for his elaborate wildlife compositions created in his signature style of gestural painting, which he has coined “Abstract Naturalism.”

Andrew Rodgers

Andrew Rodgers

The Executive Director of the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, Andrew Rodgers, is an arts administrator, arts educator, and artist. He sits on the New Orleans Arts Council and is a passionate champion of the arts who has worked with arts institutions throughout the Gulf Coast to improve the lives of people through the arts.

Arturo Perez

Arturo Perez

Arturo Perez has has been teaching for over 25 years (K-12 to adults to seniors), has a Bachelor Degree from UNO in both Fine Arts and Science, has a Master of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute, and also volunteers at WWOZ, Creative Arts New Orleans (CANO) and Creative Industries. He continues to be involved in art and dance education teaching classes, workshops, private lessons, exhibiting work, and performing.

Ben Hamburger

Ben Hamburger

Ben Hamburger is a painter and art educator based in New Orleans, LA. Hamburger holds a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Eckerd College and a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Community Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art

Blainey Kern

Blainey Kern

Blainey Kern grew up immersed in Mardi Gras culture and honors her heritage in her use of materials and wild color palette, mining it for its innate ability to transcend the ordinary. Blainey's focus includes sculpture, painting, drawing and video and performance pieces.

Brooke Howell

Brooke Howell

Brooke Howell is a multi-media artist and sculptor that creates soulful, whimsical character-based artworks. She commands a range of traditional and modern mediums including clay, bronze, silicone, resin, foam, and digital sculpting/3D printing.

Carol Peebles

Carol Peebles

The work of Carol Peebles focuses on portraits and figures, drawn from life, to celebrate the people in her immediate environment.

Chad Serhal

Chad Serhal

Chad Serhal grew up in north central Indiana and northeast Kentucky. Coming from music, film and then cartooning background, his work centers around the collaged recycling of materials and information (printed, video, and sound).

Dave Hotstream

Dave Hotstream

Dave Hotstream is a professional illustrator who has produced work for The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, The U.S. Peace Corps, and Wizards of The Coast/Magic The Gathering.

Emre Karaoglu

Emre Karaoglu

Emre Karaoglu, a contemporary figurative artist from Turkey, now based in New Orleans, uses oil, pastel & charcoal portraits to capture the profound layers of human experience within everyday life.

Garth Swanson

Garth Swanson

Garth studied at the University of New Hampshire and teaches Advanced Still Life Oil Painting at the Academy.

Gus Hoffman

Gus Hoffman

Gus has shown his work all over the country; most notably in Philadelphia, New York, and New Orleans. His most recent solo show was at the Blue House in New Orleans. Most days you can find Gus somewhere around Bayou St. John painting on site.

Hazel Tebbe-Crump

Hazel Tebbe-Crump

Hazel Tebbe-Crump is a visual artist native to New Orleans and NOCCA alumnus.

Heidi Mortensen

Heidi Mortensen

Heidi is a mixed-media sculpture and installation artist trained in traditional figure sculpting techniques.

Helen Reed

Helen Reed

Helen Reed is a passionate local photographer and educator specializing in portraiture. Helen’s commitment to both her craft and her students continues to shape her artistic path and the community around her.‍

John Stephens

John Stephens

John Stephens is an accomplished art instructor and artist with a deep commitment to making art accessible and meaningful for all.

Jonathan Hodge

Jonathan Hodge

Jonathan's themes often reflect the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity, perhaps best illustrated by his paintings of Hurricane Katrina that devastated his hometown of New Orleans. He believes not only in the power of art, but its ability to move people.

Jono Goodman

Jono Goodman

Through printmaking and painting Jono’s work has been shown across the globe and is a part of private collections worldwide.

Kaori Maeyama

Kaori Maeyama

Kaori Maeyama is an urban landscape painter born and raised in Fukuoka, Japan. A New Orleans resident since 1994, she worked as a focus puller and a digital audio editor before devoting herself to analog image making.

Kathleen Matthews

Kathleen Matthews

Kathleen Matthews is a New Orleans native. She concentrates on oil painting, mainly still life and interiors. Her work includes realism, impressionism, and alla prima.

Lyle Colombo

Lyle Colombo

Louisiana native Lyle Colombo paints portraits, landscapes, and works of abstract realism in oil on panel using traditional techniques. She continually seeks new ways to make representational painting, particularly the figure, relevant to the contemporary world.

Nell Tilton

Nell Tilton

Nell Curtis Tilton is a New Orleans native who has been immersed in the visual arts all of her adult life. Experimenting with materials and subject matter, she is continually building knowledge from her explorations and observations. Intuitiveness and response are the essence and joy of her process.

Nicole Charbonnet

Nicole Charbonnet

Nicole's paintings are very textural and built up over long periods of time. The superimposition of textures, images, words, loose, watery washes of paint and veils of translucent fabric or paper, creates a visual threshold in her work which is something to look at as well as to look through.

Nurhan Gokturk

Nurhan Gokturk

Nurhan Gokturk is a multidisciplinary artist and urban designer. Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Nurhan immigrated to New York City at the age of three. His projects have been featured worldwide.

Patti Adams

Patti Adams

Patti Adams is a professional artist and musician who has lived and worked in New Orleans since 1982. Her work is defined by her wide-ranging interests in calligraphy, gilding, painting in watercolor and oils, book illustration, and color theory.

Peter Frauenfelder

Peter Frauenfelder

Peter Frauenfelder is a visual artist, sign painter, musician and native San Franciscan who has lived in New Orleans since early 2020. Since a teenager, Peter has worked in the arts and education with a focus on fine art, mentorship, and community development.

Phoebe Grace

Phoebe Grace

Phoebe is a sculpture and mixed media artist new to the New Orleans area. She is excited to continue teaching, learning, and creating with others at NOAFA.

Rebecca Madura

Rebecca Madura

Rebecca earned Bachelor Degrees from University of Texas at Austin in both Fine Arts and Liberal Arts as well as a post-graduate certificate in Non-Profit Management. She has a Master of Liberal Arts from Tulane University.

Reid Nicholls

Reid Nicholls

Reid Nicholls is a ceramic artist and sculptor whose body of work uses symbolic imagery paired with figurative elements to create abstract forms that are hand-built and wheel thrown.

Ren Watson

Ren Watson

Ren Watson is a multidisciplinary artist and educator specializing in painting and ceramics. Her work explores the intersection of reality and the surreal, engaging themes such as nostalgia, dreams, liminal spaces, and distorted memories. She is drawn to imagery that feels both familiar and uncanny; scenes that may evoke warmth and comfort for some, yet unease or tension for others.

Richard Vallon

Richard Vallon

Richard Vallon Jr. was born and raised in New Orleans. A graduate of ASU with a BFA (photography), he has enjoyed teaching photography since 1981. He has taught the UNO Metro College photo classes and classes at Lakeside Camera since 2004.

Sara Madandar

Sara Madandar

Sara Madandar is an Iranian multi-disciplinary artist and educator who explores migration and the human experience of living between cultures, using the aesthetics of language, clothing, and bodies to study the complexities of cross-cultural experiences.

Sara Nyquist

Sara Nyquist

Sara Nyquist is a multidisciplinary artist living in New Orleans. She taught this summer in our Fine Arts Summer Camp, and she now joins our faculty.

Sean Friloux

Sean Friloux

Sean Friloux lives and works in New Orleans and is accomplished in watercolor, graphite drawings and acrylic. His work has been featured in Plein Air Magazine and Watercolor Artist Magazine.

Zona Wainwright

Zona Wainwright

Zona blends natural colors into undefined forms that tend to please the eye and tantalize the viewer's interpretation.

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