Emory seniors Dorien Johniken and Ainsley Powers are the recipients of the 2026 Louis B. Sudler Prize in the Arts, recognizing their accomplishments and skills in the creative and performing arts.
The Sudler Prize, awarded annually at Emory and a select group of universities across the nation, is accompanied by a $6,000 award and is bestowed at the Emory College Honors Program each Commencement.
Dorien Johniken
Originally from Anniston, Alabama, Johniken began his visual arts career at a young age. “As soon as I picked up a pencil, I was drawing on mail, boxes, walls, anything but paper,” he says.
Johniken made his way to Emory with a prestigious QuestBridge scholarship. Originally, he planned to study engineering, but at Emory, his academic interests brought him back to his creative instincts.
Johniken graduates this spring with a double major in psychology and visual arts — a combination that has come to define a uniquely powerful artistic voice.
“Dorien’s true creative superpower is his ability to, and interest in, contextualizing his work within artistic lineage and contemporary discourse — which is rare for most student-artists,” says Anna Wehrwein, assistant professor of visual arts. “He sees research as inspiration as well as a responsibility, looking to art history, theory, social justice and popular culture.”
Johniken’s work is anchored in rigorous psychological research. During the summer of 2025, he completed an in-depth research project through Emory’s SURE program alongside faculty mentor and Emory Visual Arts instructor Jane Foley. Titled “Identity, Memory, & Resistance: An Analysis of Black American Portraiture Across Contemporary Visual Culture,” the project explored historical and contemporary portrayals of Black Americans with a mission of cultural reclamation. Johniken created a series of digital paintings exploring his research themes through different styles of Black contemporary fine artists.
As Johniken finishes his undergraduate tenure, he reflects on the support he received both from this program and across his time at Emory.
“I’m incredibly grateful to the community of artists and mentors who pushed me to reach this level,” he says. “Their support gives me the confidence to take bigger risks as I move into graduate studies and the next chapter of my professional practice.”
As Johniken explores graduate programs in visual arts, arts therapy and arts education, he is excited for the opportunities ahead and grateful for the confidence that comes along with winning the Sudler Prize.
“My goal has always been to create a visceral, identity-focused connection through the digital canvas that feels as raw as traditional charcoal or acrylics,” says Johniken. “This award confirms that those connections are landing and that there is a resonant space for digital art to explore the complexities of how we perceive and construct the self.”
Ainsley Powers
Hailing from Houston, Powers found her creative footing in musical theater. While taking lessons in singing, dancing and acting, she developed her performance foundation in school and church productions.
“I just love doing theater,” she says. “I’ve always found a way to do that, whatever way was possible.”
Powers arrived at Emory eager to engage, reaching out to theater faculty before her first semester to discover available opportunities. In her first two years alone, she performed in numerous campus productions, took on leadership roles with the Lenaia Playwriting Festival and student theater group Dooley’s Players, and earned an assistant director credit working with Tony-nominated playwright and Emory professor Kimberly Belflower.
As Powers’ college career continued, playwriting became the focus of her creative exploration. She began to develop her own voice, dissecting womanhood, Southern identity and the complications that often arise within those experiences.
During her junior year, Powers was named a John H. Gordon Stipe Society Fellow for playwriting. She also took a dramaturgical research trip to New York City to observe rehearsals for Kimberly Belflower’s Broadway premiere of “John Proctor is the Villain” — an experience that solidified her interests in the professional theater world.
The momentum continued when her play “The Right Hook” won the New South Young Playwrights Festival in Atlanta, leading to a professional playwriting commission.
“As a playwright, the growth Ainsley has demonstrated in her four years at Emory is remarkable,” says Belflower. “Many ambitious young writers come in with a clear idea of who they are and eventually grow stagnant, but over the years, Ainsley has pushed herself to new creative heights with great rigor and determination.”
While her accolades and awards speak for themselves, Powers has always kept community at the center of her creative and personal development.
“Looking back on my college experiences, all of the decisions I’ve made to start a new project were really aligned with the people that I wanted to surround myself with and the people who inspired me,” she says.
Following her graduation from Emory as a playwriting major, with a joint degree in creative writing and theater studies, Powers has her sights set on exploring new theater scenes around the country, with a little help from the Sudler Prize.
“I’m excited to put the award money towards future development opportunities for my thesis play and more.”Listen to Dorien Johniken and Ainsley Powers discuss their creative evolutions on their respective episodes of the Creativity Conversations podcast, produced by Emory Arts.