RCS: Rocking Chair Sessions was created by Elysa D. Batista and Maria Theresa Barbist as a hybrid between an artist talk and a therapy session. South Florida based artists and creatives are invited to share their lives and artistic process while sitting in a rocking chair.
Amanda Sanfilippo Long would like to acknowledge the following correction: towards the end, she mentions the “High Line” as an exciting upcoming project coming up for Miami-Dade County, she meant to refer to the project as Miami’s “Underline”, which is a similar project to New York’s High Line, both projects designed by James Corner Field Operations. www.theunderline.org Amanda Sanfilippo Long is the Curator & Artist Manager of Art in Public Places, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. One of the first public art programs in the country (est. 1973), 1.5% of public land construction costs are allocated for the purchase or commission of artworks. With over 700 works of art in the collection, the program has gained international recognition. Amanda is the Director of the South Florida Cultural Consortium, and the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Fringe Projects. Amanda initiated and directed Art in Public Places’ co-presentation of the Creative Time Summit Miami, 2018. Amanda has held positions at Locust Projects, Miami, FL; Creative Time, New York, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; and the BCA Center, Burlington, VT. She holds an MA in Contemporary Art History, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London; BA in Art History, University of Vermont. https://miamidadepublicart.org/ http://www.fringeprojectsmiami.com/
Jose Luis Garcia is a Photo-Based Artist, who lives and works in Miami, FL. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Art from New World School of the Arts/University of Florida and his Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Florida International University. He has exhibited locally in venues such as the Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Coral Gables Museum, O Cinema Wynwood in partnership with ArtCenter/South Florida, Bakehouse Art Complex, Laundromat Art Space and Turn-Based Press. http://www.avantgarci.com/about
Natalya Kochak was born in New York and has since spent time in many different places, from Alabama to Chicago, Berlin to Beijing. She graduated with her BFA and MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and now resides in Miami. Natalya is currently a professor at Miami International University in the visual arts department. She was an artist-in-residence in 2018- 2019 with ProjectArt, teaching displaced teenagers and students from underserved school districts twice a week at the Model City branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library System. Recently, she finished doing a mural for the non- profit Raw Project that places artists in under served schools across the United States to brighten the walls and promote student engagement.
Franky Cruz (b. 1984, Dominican Republic) received his BFA from the New World School of the Arts, Miami, in 2011. He has participated in residencies at HomeBase Project, Berlin, and the Airie Residency at the Everglades National Park, FL, where he explores conservation issues as part of his interdisciplinary practice. Most recently, Cruz completed a residency at Elsewhere in Greensboro, NC. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at Miami galleries and spaces including Spinello Projects (2016 & 2014), Dorsch Gallery (2015), and Primary Projects (2011), among others. Cruz currently lives and works in Miami, FL. https://www.instagram.com/toolooselautrec
Yanira Collado lives/works in Miami FL. Education, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Collado was awarded first place in the 2013 South Florida Biennial at the Art and Cultural Center/Hollywood, Hollywood, FL and was a recipient of The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, 2018. Group shows include, 10 – A Decade at Dimensions Variable, Fragment at Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami, FL, FL, Penumbras: sacred geometries at Project Row Houses, Houston, TX 2019. http://yaniracollado.net/
Colombian-born, Miami-raised, Mateo is a photo-based artist. Growing up amongst a predominantly Latin culture, observing the striking humanistic similarities within the city serve as a muse to create work that emphasizes the beauty found within life. Being drawn to the peculiar exploration of the human experience, Mateo uses the camera as a tool to navigate through conversations that develop through organic interactions between people and the environment. Focusing on the premise that process is more important than product, the main drive of the artist rests within establishing a relationship with his subjects so that they, through dialogue unravel a guarded trust and thus illuminate their true essence. https://www.mateosernazapata.com/
Rhea Leonard (b. 1991) born and raised in South Florida, is an African American artist that utilizes drawing, printmaking and sculpture within her art practice. She explores topics highlighting the Black body and how society affects Black psychology through her detailed, and poignant figurative works. She received her MFA from Florida International University and her BFA from University of Florida through New World School of the Arts College. Her work has been on display at Red Bridge Studios, The African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood as well as with Art Africa Miami and RAW PopUp. She has also been a participating artist in the Contemporary Art Program LAB with Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. As a 2018 recipient of the Betty Laird Perry Award, her work is part of The Betty Laird Perry Emerging Artist Collection at the Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum. She is currently a resident of The Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami, Florida. https://cargocollective.com/rlart
My passion for Fiber Art started at a very young age. Creating with wool was only natural in my native country of Uruguay, where the number of sheep far exceeds the number of inhabitants. My beginnings were in tapestry and knitting. Quilting, free style embroidery, yarn bombing and fiber installations followed my ever-evolving fiber path. After graduating with a B.A. in Law in Montevideo, Uruguay and moving to the United States, I saw a chance to pursue my passion for art and creating. I attended Parsons School of Design in NYC, so that I could fulfill my creative side. I am now a 2020 candidate for MFA in Visual Arts from Miami International University of Art and Design. https://evelynpolitzer.com/
Nicole Maynard-Sahar is an artist-in-residence at the Bakehouse Art Complex in the Wynwood Arts District of Miami. She most recently participated in the official studio tour of Art Basel Miami, Smash and Grab at Locust Projects, La Pinta Art Fair, Between the Legible and the Opaque: Approaches to an Ideal in Place curated by Adler Guerrier (on view through March 31, 2020), and New Work at the Bakehouse Art Complex curated by Justin Long. She earned awards at the University of Pennsylvania for painting and color theory. Originally from Boston, Maynard-Sahar relocated to Miami in June 2017. https://maynardsahar.com/
With decades of experience as an arts administrator, curator, and educator Christopher Barake is the Deputy Director for the Doral Contemporary Art Museum - DORCAM. He is co-founder of Art Industry Movement and was curator at KER Art + Design Gallery and ConcreteSpace. Barake is also an academic administrator for the Department of Art + Art History at Florida International University. He began his career at FIU in 2007 where his previous duties include coordinating an artist-in-residency program and community-based collaboratory art projects. He earned his Master of Fine Arts in Curatorial Practice, along with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Sculpture, and Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from Florida International University. www.dorcam.org
I use household items and industrial materials to explore identity, gender, displacement and the concept of home. My work is of an intuitive nature, rooted in the painterly and the language of abstraction- though it often defies a singular categorization. These hybrid works are based on the idea of stretching the medium beyond traditional interpretations. The objects I employ are marred by overuse, they speak to their history or demise in order to form and shape narratives between early childhood in Cuba and the present. Chaotic, humorous amalgamations of materials and disparate objects sometimes serve as stand ins for the figure or the self, challenging the threshold between stability and instability as they transcend boundaries between painting, sculpture, and installation. Household Plants, fishing line, discarded clothing, broken furniture, wood, and other unconventional materials provide clues as to a city's inhabitants while commenting on our relationship with interior and exterior spaces. www.claravaras.com
Lucia Del Sanchez is an artist and designer from Miami, FL. Through sculpture and painting Sanchez seeks to build a new relationship with her hometown. In collaboration with her father, Oliver Sanchez, she has produced art shows and programming at Swampspace Gallery since 2008. This independent and non-commercial art space engages a wide range of tastes and often functions as an educational resource for the youth. Sanchez studied abroad at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Holland and the European Exchange Academy in Germany. She attended The Cooper Union in New York City and received a B.F.A in Fine Arts. Lucia Del Sanchez is of Cuban and Slovenian descent and traces her story, breaking down its historical narrative with an eye to archeology and the archive. She employs collections, observations, and word play to produce temporal poetics and protracted self portraits.
Kim Yantis is a visual artist whose work is fueled by collaboration, sewing, and design. Her current project with Lucinda Linderman, "Suiting-up for the Future,” is a wry runway show and workshop series of sustainable workwear and utilitarian accessories that act as “Wearable Tools for the 21st Century.” Together they create demonstration pieces, allegorical costumes, take-away postcards and performance works.Garments and accessories are available for purchase and commission. http://www.kimyantis.com/ https://www.instagram.com/suitingupforthefuture
Paris-born Karelle Levy was raised in Miami by a Swedish mother and Tunisian father. She spent her childhood surrounded by arts and crafts, music, dance and fashion, which all play a role in her designs. Levy studied textile design at Rhode Island School of Design, where she knitted and wove fabrics for garments and costumes worn during her art performances. The costumes became the impetus for KRELwear, a fashion-forward collection of couture and ready to wear. As Levy’s textiles evolved, her art grew more intricate and developed into large-scale, site-specific installations and two-dimensional works. Playing with a vast array of yarns and colors to create her signature fabrics, she knits shimmering, glow-in-the-dark rainbows and patchwork landscapes inspired by aerial views during frequent air travel. https://krelwear.com/
Aaron Glickman is a writer, actor and filmmaker. Through his contributions to SocialMiami, he has had opportunities to document many fascinating people and organizations in the fields of philanthropy, the arts, fashion, design and real estate including Carolina Herrera, James Rosenquist, Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, Russell Simmons, Nicole Miller, Christian Louboutin, Lin Arison and many more. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Miami Theater Center (MTC) and is on the Executive Committee of the National YoungArts Foundation. He recently founded Current.Miami, a digital media platform that tells hyper-local stories through the use of video. http://current.miami/
Barron Sherer is a time-based media artist with a background in moving image archival practice and research. He currently works in Miami with a focus on altering and repurposing archived films. In the early 2000s, he was curator at Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives where he programmed moving image festivals, public access activities, researched collections and managed photochemical conservation. He is the recipient of awards, fellowships, and residencies including a 2017 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship, a 2019 Experimental Media Artist in Residence at Signal Culture and a 2020 Oolite Arts at Anderson Ranch Artist Residency. Sherer’s new studio project, Moving Image Alliance is a 2019 Knight Arts Challenge finalist. https://vimeo.com/barronsherer
Ade J. Omotosho is a writer living in Miami and the Miami editor-at-large for Burnaway. He has held curatorial positions at Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. For Burnaway, he has written on subjects including the photographic history of the Black male nude and the work of emerging artists in Miami, and his review of Paulo Nazareth’s 2019 solo exhibition at ICA Miami was included in Stranger, Harder, Brighter: The 2019 Burnaway Reader. https://burnaway.org/author/ade-j-omotosho/
Dímitra Pantoulia is a Conservator of Antiquities and Works of Art, trained in Athens, Greece. After she finished her studies in 2009, she worked for the Library of the Hellenic Parliament and then for the Byzantine Museum in Athens. In the US, she started working for the Caryatid Conservation Services in Miami, under the conservator Stephanie Hornbeck, until she accepted the position of chief Conservator on Field Museum at Chicago, in February 2017. During that period, Dimitra was conducting condition and conservation assessments, conservation treatments and maintenance of three-dimensional artworks. https://www.pantouliaconservation.com/
Toña Vegas, (Caracas, Venezuela) is a multidisciplinary artist working with mixed media, printmaking, digital processes and site-specific three- dimensional works. Her work reflects on the visibility of an energetic underlying matrix present in every apparently distinct element of nature us humans included. https://tonyavegass.squarespace.com/
Felecia Chizuko Carlisle, a native Floridian, has lived and worked in Miami, FL since 2009. She is an artist, educator and community organizer. She works across performance, installation, sound, sculpture, photography, and video within a wide variety of contexts including nightclubs, gardens, bathrooms, empty lots and fire stations; as well as, museums, commercial galleries and non-profit art spaces. https://www.feleciacarlisleart.com/
Gallery Director and Curator, University of Miami
Sammi McLean seeks out a particular sense of longing that seems impossible to satiate, bringing that which feels absent to the surface through the act of creating. In some ways, her work functions as the only physical tie that she has to significant people, places, or things that have gone. While the subject matter has transformed over time, the need to expose that yearning and resurrect what’s been lost remains. https://www.sammimclean.com/
Gabriela Gamboa is a visual artist working with a broad range of media, including photography, video and performance, sound and printmaking. Though she was born in Pittsburgh she has spent the better part of her life in Venezuela. Her work draws strongly on current affairs and the effect of disruptive political agendas resulting in displacements and upheaval, of which she speaks from the heart. http://gabrielagamboa.com/
I was born in the center of the Caribbean, where, according to the writer Junot Diaz, the fukú originated, Santo Domingo, where waves and palm trees were always saying something to me with their particular rhythm. Then, looking for new lights, I settled in the city of Miami, where the coast still wanted to talk to me, to offer me its insular imaginary, from the edge, the border. In my work, I explore the poetics related to the construction of a new imaginary in the contemporary Caribbean through video, photography, performance, painting and installation, crisscrossing it with my family history. I focus on ritual, and on the idea that we can eradicate the silences in which these contexts and imagery have been constructed. I call my practice integrating Afro-Caribbean folk traditions and participatory social practice “Art of Uncertainty.” http://www.charooquet.com http://www.edgezones.org
Elisa Turner has been called “Miami’s art critic.” Probably a lot of other things too, but we won’t go there. She was an art critic for The Miami Herald when it was still owned by Knight Ridder, which no longer exists. Now that her Herald byline no longer exists either, this award-winning journalist is for sure not shutting up. Here's where to find her most current writing: Artburstmiami and Biscayne Times. In 2019 she won the Leadership Award from the Florida Chapter of ArtTable, Inc. http://artcircuitsartcentric.blogspot.com/ http://elisaturnerartcrit.blogspot.com/ http://inspicio.fiu.edu/video-categories/elisa-turner/ https://www.artburstmiami.com/ http://www.biscaynetimes.com/
Atomik is a 100 percent Miami artist. Atomik, trained in graphic design, is a big name in the Miami art scene. The graffiti legend, part of the infamous MSG crew, a group of local graffiti heroes, has been painting the city for quite some time. While growing up in the emerging Miami graffiti scene of the 80’s, Atomik witnessed for himself at a young age what would later become his profession. Famous for his iconic orange character which emerged as a response to the demolition of the Miami Orange Bowl ,the artists also marks the walls of Miami with his sleek hand-styles, graffiti and lettering. https://www.instagram.com/atomiko
After graduating from Florida International University with a bachelors in photography, Monica began collaborating with her sister on videos, large-scale installations, performance art, clothing, VJ sets, and fanzines. A video piece at Bas Fischer International that featured 35 local artists passing on "creative energy" to each other gained the attention of critics. Since then, TM Sisters work has been featured in the second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art and at Performa07 in New York. Locust Projects selected the pair from an applicant pool of 72 artists to receive the Hilger Artist Project Award. They were also included in the international exhibition "Uncertain States of America: American Art in the 3rd Millennium" curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Daniel Birnbaum, and Gunnar B. Kvaran (Miami New Times). https://www.instagram.com/monicatronica
Thomas Bils’s paintings are a result of his interests over epistemology of memory and the ontology of its subjects, using his adolescence in central Florida as the base position of introspection. Working in photorealistic oil painting he references the mnemonic properties of the photograph and translates the image as an act of nostalgic contemplation. During the translation process Thomas assumes the role of the unreliable narrator, embellishing upon minute details or events, leavening the image with narratorial unease. This falsification accounts for the deteriorating truths of a reconsolidating memory. https://thomasbils.com/
Evan Robarts (b. 1982) lives and works in New York and Miami. He graduated from Pratt with a BFA in sculpture in 2008. He has previously held solo exhibitions at Berthold Pott, Cologne (2017); Galerie Jeanroach Dard, Brussels (2016); and The Hole, New York (2015). Recent group exhibitions include Abstraction & Architecture, Université de Strasbourg (2018), See the Moon?, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn (2017); and the Fountain Head Residency Show, Miami (2017) organized by Kathryn Mikesell. This fall, Robarts will hold a solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Kunsthalle Kunstverein Bremerhaven in Germany. http://evanrobarts.com/
Giannina Coppiano Dwin lives and works in South Florida. She has been the recipient of grants and awards such as the prestigious South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists funded in part by the National Endowment for the Art, the Women in the Visual Arts Award; as well as, several sponsorships and grants including research in Spain and Brazil. Her work has been included in national and international exhibitions as part of solo and group shows. Some of her more notable exhibitions include solo installations at the Fundacion Valdes-Salas in Asturias, Spain, Project Space in The Art and Culture Center in Hollywood, the contemporary wing of the Museo Municipal de Guayaquil, Ecuador; Ornare, Miami, as a collateral event during Art Basel; the Coral Springs Museum of Art, Coral Springs; Illegal Gallery, Florence, Italy. http://gianninadwin.com/
My work has always had an organic, visceral aspect which I consider to be part of my concern with life issues, like vulnerability, passion, and the uncanny. Drawing in notebooks is my lifeline to my work. I keep one handy at all times and my hand goes where it wants in these visual journals. After I complete one, I reconnoiter, selecting and tearing out what might be used for inspiration. http://www.sarastites.com/
Rafael Rangel was born in New York in 1978. Lives and works in Miami, Florida. He graduates with honors in Visual Arts at Pratt Institute in 2001. That same year, he works as an assistant for Matthew Barney and starts his exhibiting career. From then, has participated in group shows in Germany, Canada, Spain, United States and Venezuela. In 2013 he had a mayor solo exhibition at the museum Centro de Bellas Artes de Maracaibo, Venezuela. His works has been exhibited in Venezuela at the most important museums such as Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas MAC, Galería de Arte Nacional, Museo de Bellas Artes, Centro de Bellas Artes de Maracaibo and MACZUL. www.instagram.com/rafaelrangelserrano
I grew up on a small blueberry farm in the middle of nowhere Georgia. I got immense satisfaction roaming the woods, gathering materials for little sculptures, and creating stories for myself, but the desire to connect with people, to explore, to learn was pervasive. After graduating at the top of my class, I caught the first ride to Athens, Georgia where I fought doubt and questions relentlessly to get my BFA at the University of Georgia. Clay became my conduit for processing my experience in this world, as a woman, in the South, and it gave me a way to speak, and often, to scream. http://alex-hodge.com
Photographer Manny Hernandez has captured Miami's flash and moments of pizzazz in decades worth of candid images. His photographs chronicle the Magic City's celebrity-driven tipping point of the late 1980s and 1990s. https://www.wynwoodbooks.com/
Agustina Woodgate creates art across multiple disciplines, her primary focus being the interplay between human beings and their surroundings. Born in Buenos Aires, Woodgate moved to Miami in 2004, where she gained recognition for covertly stitching labels inscribed with poems into thrift-store clothing (“poetry bombing,”) and for her work made with human hair. Today, her practice ranges from objects—human hair sculptures and kaleidoscopic rugs assembled with the pelts of recycled stuffed animals—to site-specific, context-based installations and performances. Striving to create work that fosters human relationships, Woodgate has produced public works such as park benches and color-changing billboards and bus shelters. Exploring an interest in residue and ephemera, she has sanded down the walls of an unused classroom and similarly, erased maps from a world atlas, both times collecting and cataloguing the dust. https://agustinawoodgate.com/ http://radioee.net/
The Wolfsonian–FIU is a museum that explores the inventive and provocative character of the modern world. Through objects and design, we reveal how the past influences the present and shapes the future. https://wolfsonian.org/about/
Born in 1967 in Chicago, while still an undergraduate, Tina La Porta developed a body of work photographing the Pro-Choice movement in Chicago, Milwakee, Waashington D.C. and New York City. In 1992 Ms. La Porta moved to New York's East Village to persue her Masters of Fine Arts Degree at The School of Visual Arts where she studied with Lisa Spellman, Sarah Charlesworth and Nan Goldin. During that time she interned at Pace/McGill Gallery and for Historian, Naomi Rosemblum while she wrote her book A History of Women Photographers (Abbeville Press). Her intial post-graduate work was immersed within the global internet art movement where she created several internet specific art works such as: net.works + avatars, distance and Re:mote_Corp@REALities. After 9/11 she shifted her attention to mediated representations and coverage of war where she found the "Veil" to be the perfect metaphor. Most Recently, Ms. La Porta's work has turned inward and paradoxically comments on consumer behavior in regards to everyday use of pharmceuticals. http://www.tinalaporta.net/
Derek Hunter b. 1988 | New York, NY is an entirely self-taught painter, sculptor and muralist. His work explores the language of architecture and crystallography as a means to challenge expectations around site-specificity and urban construction, questioning how architectural spaces interacting with and designed in the likes of the natural world directly impacts our well-being and informs our sense of self. Hunter works and resides in South Florida. http://derekhunterart.com/
After studying woodwork and design in Sweden he escaped the dark winters for the sunny tropical world of Florida where he currently lives and works. In his studio, he focuses on designing and the fabrication of unique modern furniture. He combines the clean, simple lines of Scandinavian sensibility with that of Caribbean warmth and function. His custom woodwork connects the unique desires of his customers with the soul of the design itself. https://rudirepenning.com/
Santos art education is worldly, and his work has been seen around the globe, from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sicily, Italy and the Beijing museum in China to Chelsea, New York. Santos studied at Miami Dade College, where he earned his Associate in Arts degree in 2003. He then attended the New World School of the Arts and, just before graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, he dropped out to study abroad and to amplify his understanding of art. In 2006, he completed the Angel Academy of Art in Florence. http://www.santocesar.com/
For more than thirty years, Miami-based artist Karen Rifas has amassed a body of work that endeavors to understand and re-imagine space. Well known for her minimal cord and leaf installations, and precise, methodical line drawings, in 2016, Rifas began a focused exploration into the constructive possibilities of color. Employing densely hued shapes and irregular lines, Rifas creates spaces that oscillate between the two- and three-dimensional. Deceptive Constructions surveys this recent body of work for the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in over 10 years. Through variegated floor and sculptural installations, works on paper, and wood panel, Rifas uses a concise language of richly contrasted color to alter our perception of space. (The Bass) http://www.emersondorsch.com/artists/karen-rifas
Monique Lassooij was born and raised in The Netherlands and moved several years ago to Miami, Florida. In The Netherlands the artist started out as an abstract painter but over the years she developed a passion for figurative painting. She attended the Royal Academy for Fine Arts in The Hague and has gone on to receive several commissions and can be found in public places such as the Town Hall of the city of Scheveningen in The Netherlands as well as in numerous private collections all over the world. https://www.molassooijart.com/
Gianna DiBartolomeo was born and raised in Miami, Florida. She currently exhibits her work throughout the United States. Gianna studied Fine Arts at Florida International University in Miami, Florida where she obtained her Bachelors of Fine Arts. She had the privilege of studying under Professor Emeritus Clive King from the United Kingdom and internationally acclaimed artist Jacek Kolasinski from Krakow, Poland. https://www.giannadibartolomeo.com/
Nina Surel is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is best described as an ongoing exploration of the deepest recesses of our collective unconscious, from a decidedly feminist standpoint. http://ninasurel.com/
Rafael Vargas Bernard utilizes performance, sound, programming, sculpture, video, painting, humor, and drawing in his creative practice. He employs readily accessible materials and technologies, found objects, and a utilitarian esthetic. https://montane.bandcamp.com/track/j-bazzo-jar
Miami Beach artist Pamela Palma has been working with textiles since she was four years old. By 13 she was designing, sewing and knitting her own personal wardrobe as well as creating functional and decorative accessories. Weaving came later and accidentally – as a requirement for her degree in Design. The art and technique of hand weaving came so naturally that it changed her life. The limitless possibilities of designing woven fabrics as art and functional pieces reflects upon the timeless continuum of weaving across all cultures, brought into contemporary relevance in her works. https://pamelapalmadesigns.com/
Since 1991 and the dazzling days of an emerging South Beach, Adora has graced Miami’s performance landscape. The alter ego of Danilo De La Torre, this famous drag queen combines camp with glam and humor. (current.miami) https://www.instagram.com/adoradrag/
Asser Saint-Val is a painter, sculptor and installation artist. His quasi-figurative images, by turns humorous and grotesque, bring together ideas, people and incidents central to modern debates about the definition and valence of Neuromalanin. Rendered in a blend of traditional art mediums and a wide range of unconventional, organic materials—coffee, chocolate, ginger, tea and chocolate among them—his pictures, objects and environments are a surreal fantasia on such loosely linked themes as under-recognized African American inventors, the politics of sexual desire, and the complex aesthetics, narratives and metaphors that attach to the organic compounds neuromelanin. https://www.assersaintvl.com/
Director of the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University, Miami, Dr. Jordana Pomeroy served for more than 15 years at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, rising to Chief Curator after being the museum’s Curator of Painting and Sculpture Before 1900. Prior to the Frost Art Museum, Pomeroy served as Executive Director of the Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge. Pomeroy earned her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College, and her Ph.D. in Art History from Columbia University. https://frost.fiu.edu/