South Florida Artists Scale Up for Orlando Museum’s Florida Prize

“Formed Under Pressure: Horizon 2026,” a site-specific installation by Mette Tommerup, is one of the exhibitions in this year’s Florida Prize in Contemporary Art at the Orlando Museum of Art. Eight Miami Dade County artists or duos are featured this year in the survey show through Sunday, Aug. 23. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, Rheo Creative)

A trio of vibrant pyramids, built from almost 100 canvases, tower from floor to ceiling. Photographs explore motherhood and the American landscape. A bed of dried flower petals bears the imprint of a body.  Walls are covered in hand-drawn sacred symbols. A pink installation of sculptures made of goat’s milk soap is built around intimacy and well-being.

One gallery after another at the Orlando Museum of Art belongs to a Miami-Dade County artist in this year’s Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, making the state’s premier contemporary art exhibition feel unexpectedly close to home for Miami audiences.

Eight of the exhibition’s 12 artists and artist duos have South Florida ties, including Miami artist Francisco Masó, whose “The Coronation of Gladiolus” received the exhibition’s $20,000 top prize.

Miami artist Francisco Masó “The Coronation of Gladiolus” received the $20,000 Florida Prize. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, Rheo Creative)

Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon, senior curator at the Orlando Museum of Art, who organized the exhibition with associate curator Katherine Page, credits what she calls the county’s “ecosystem for artists” as one of the reasons that so many are from Miami.

“Miami has just this incredible pool of artists, but those artists are there because there’s a great support system for them,” she says, pointing to organizations such as Bakehouse Art Complex, Locust Projects, Oolite Arts, Bridge Red, and other spaces that provide exhibition opportunities, studios, and a community that allows practices to develop over time.

“When you think about Miami as this ecosystem for artists, you have incredible spaces for creation,” she says.

Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon, senior curator at the Orlando Museum of Art, (Photo courtesy of Orlando Museum of Art)

Once selected for the Florida Prize, artists are given something many times unavailable to them: room to create, to push their ideas and to mount something that can be seen for an extended period of time by a range of visitors.

“When you give artists the space to create, a lot of them want to scale up,” Claeysen-Gleyzon says.

While Miami may have studio complexes, what the Orlando Museum of Art offers with its Florida Prize is that local artists basically get the chance to exhibit in what amounts to solo shows in a major museum.

Page, who started at the museum six months ago, says she and Claeysen-Gleyzon immediately started working on finalizing the artists that would be selected for this year’s exhibition.

“When we are thinking about the artists to select, we think about what spaces will work best for their work, what will highlight their work. They have room and space to grow and we work with them to figure out what that means. Many of them already have something in mind that they’ve been dreaming about,” she says. “It’s really great to be a part of that dream.”

Miami Beach-based artist Charo Oquet’s installation at the Orlando Museum of Art became an opportunity to unite works dating back to 2014 with sweeping wall ink drawings created specifically for the museum show. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, Rheo Creative)

Artists aren’t selected through an open call. Instead, the Florida Prize is built through years of studio visits, exhibition research and conversations as curators follow artists’ careers before extending an invitation.

“The process to select the artists for the Florida Prize is actually something that takes several years,” says Claeysen-Gleyzon.

Dreaming Bigger

When Mette Tommerup first visited the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, she looked at the soaring gallery walls and hoped one day she would be invited.

This year, the Danish-born, Coconut Grove-based artist got her wish.

Across a 90-foot wall at the Orlando Museum of Art, Tommerup assembled three monumental pyramids built from canvases dragged through the ocean and Biscayne Bay, dried in flowering trees and tossed from rooftops at dusk, surrendering part of the creative process to nature itself.

One of the towering pyramids in site-specific installation as part of the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art by Danish-born Coconut Grove-based artist Mette Tommerup. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, Rheo Creative)

Each pyramid has a color that represents the three elements of ocean, earth and air with newly introduced gold leaf accents. The canvases, carefully arranged in structured compositions, rise in the gallery like geological formations or ancient architectural monuments, according to Claeysen-Gleyzon.

“I try to relinquish authorship, so my work is not all about me,” says Tommerup. “I try to listen to the canvases.”

The opportunity to be selected and work with curators to realize ambitious projects is what makes the Florida Prize such a milestone, Tommerup says.

“The Florida Prize is a significant invitation in an artist’s career to be trusted to take on these large gallery spaces at a substantial museum,” Tommerup says. “This is, for most artists, the highest level of achievement in the state of Florida for an annual contemporary art survey show.”

Maria Theresa Barbist’s series “DER GRUND AUF DEM ICH STEHE” (“The Ground on Which I Stand”) traces psychological transformation through five stages of trauma healing in psychotherapy. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, Rheo Creative)

The exhibition also gives artists the freedom to experiment with new materials and approaches.

Maria Theresa Barbist embraced a new process, replacing traditional canvas with industrial tarps that allowed her to work on a larger scale while embedding transferred Polaroid photographs collected over years in Miami and Austria.

“This is the first time I’m painting on tarp,” Barbist says.

For Charo Oquet, the exhibition became an opportunity to unite works dating back to 2014 with sweeping wall ink drawings created specifically for the museum show. Surrounding sculptures, assemblages and brightly colored forms make the space feel part sanctuary, part dreamscape. The drawings mark the first time the artist has worked directly on gallery walls, she says.

“I’m interested in the language of the sacred,” says Oquet, who has spent nearly four decades researching Afro-Dominican spirituality. “I don’t want to do exactly the religious thing,” she says. “I want to take that idea and bring it to contemporary art.”

Working primarily in black-and-white film, Miami-based photographer Rose Marie Cromwell draws visual and conceptual references to photographers such as Ansel Adams and Robert Frank. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, Rheo Creative)

Rose Marie Cromwell, who makes bodies of work about different geographies having worked in Panama, Cuba and Miami, likewise expanded her practice beyond its usual boundaries. Her gallery combines monumental photographs with the idea of what the American West looks like through a feminist approach to landscape photography. For one large piece, she hand-stitched photographs together.

In another room an installation video shows her mother and her daughter climbing on rocks juxtaposes bodies and how they age. All of the work grew out of documenting her postpartum experience during the pandemic, then turning her attention to motherhood, generations and the American landscape.

“I realized that there was some power in sharing a story about motherhood with the world,” Cromwell says. “I had never turned the camera really onto myself or my own body or my own life.  I realized as my daughter was getting older, my mother was in her 70s, and I suddenly felt at the beginning of my 40s, kind of on this hill of life that I have never really been on before, where I could more clearly see the beginning and the end.”

We Are Nice ‘n Easy transformed a gallery into a glowing pink environment built around intimacy, vulnerability and care. Husband-and-wife artists Allison Matherly and Jeffrey Noble cast their own bodies in goat’s milk soap. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, Rheo Creative)

Room To Experiment

We Are Nice ‘n Easy transformed a gallery into a glowing pink environment built around intimacy, vulnerability and care. Husband-and-wife artists Allison Matherly and Jeffrey Noble cast their own bodies in goat’s milk soap, embracing a material that changes over time. In each sculpture, the figure holds its head in its lap.

“A lot of our work in previous years has become more controlled and manufactured looking. We wanted to introduce a medium that had more variables,” says Noble, welcoming the unpredictability of a process that echoed the themes of the installation itself.

Miami-based artist Jessy Nite’s work with durable synthetic materials and intricate knotting techniques explored resilience, preservation and the ties that bind communities together, (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, Rheo Creative)

In Jessy Nite’s exhibition, the gallery became a warm apricot-colored environment where language intersected with sculpture. Bold phrases are stretched across walls, while monumental paracord textiles and a suspended woven vessel invite visitors to linger over words such as “Retreat,” “Endure” and “Siempre.” Working with durable synthetic materials and intricate knotting techniques, the Miami artist explored resilience, preservation and the ties that bind communities together, turning simple text into quiet moments of reflection.

Ema Ri took a more contemplative approach, filling a darkened gallery with intimate paintings that  were a meditation on transformation, grief and renewal. Beneath one canvas, a pedestal covered with compressed dried flowers featured an impression of the outline of the artist’s body, extending the paintings into a reflection on mortality and resilience.

Beneath one canvas, Ema Ri presented “Keep Your Promise,” a pedestal covered with compressed dried flowers featuring an impression of the outline of the artist’s body. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, Rheo Creative)

St. Petersburg artist Jason Hackenwerth, whose massive, suspended balloon sculpture greets visitors in the museum’s rotunda, and the collaborative duo of Meredith Laura Lynn of Tallahassee and Katie Hargrave of Chattanooga, Tenn., bringing perspectives from riffs on naturalist explorations in a multi-media installation, rounded out the exhibition.

The range of work presented a challenge for guest juror Jade Powers, curator of contemporary art at the Birmingham Museum of Art, who spent an afternoon studying the exhibition before selecting the recipient of the Florida Prize’s $20,000 award.

“I appreciated how each artist engaged with relevant contemporary questions,” Powers says. “Whether addressing religion, censorship, aging, the body, historical narratives, or personal and collective trauma, every installation approached these subjects in a distinct and thoughtful way.”

She ultimately selected Masó’s “The Coronation of Gladiolus,” an installation that first appears celebratory. Gold folding panels, hanging banners and historical imagery seem almost ceremonial. A constant drumbeat and the scent of gunpowder are meant to evoke an atmosphere of a public gathering before revealing references to surveillance, repression and resistance in Cuba.

The striped abstract paintings throughout the installation are based on polo shirts worn by Cuban state security agents who blend into crowds during protests, while gladiolus flowers reference the Ladies in White dissident movement. Gold folding panels

For Masó, the work is meant to make hidden systems visible.

“For me, art should be useful,” he says. “I’m giving you the tools for understanding.”

Powers says selecting a single winner is a tall order. “(It) is never easy, particularly when the overall quality is so strong, but spending time with both the artworks and the artists’ ideas helped clarify the strengths of each presentation.”

Katherine Page, associate curator at the Orlando Museum of Art, (Photo  by Heerak Shah, courtesy of Orlando Museum of Art)

A Conversation Across Galleries

Page says there’s a deliberateness in giving over most of the museum to the show. It invites visitors who may not be frequent museumgoers into something more accessible. Visitors can also cast a People’s Choice vote for their favorite Florida Prize artist.

“It really invites a deeper kind of thinking about the work and about which artists visitors find they connect with the most. I think that is very special.”

Despite the artists’ varied approaches, Claeysen-Gleyzon says the exhibition’s conversations emerge naturally.

“The works aren’t supposed to talk to each other,” she says. “But somehow they do.”

It is inevitable that intentionally or unintentionally, the exhibition creates a conceptual content conversation and that becomes the most intriguing component of this year’s Florida Prize. To get the true sense of where contemporary art in Florida stands in 2026, the Orlando survey show does just that.

WHAT: 12^th Annual Florida Prize in Contemporary Art

WHERE: Orlando Museum of Art, 2416 N. Mills Ave., Orlando

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday; noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; closed Mondays. 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. third Thursday of each month. Through Sunday, Aug. 23.

COST: $20, $12, seniors 60 and older, $10, students with ID, $8, children ages 6 to 17; children 5 and younger and museum members free admission.

INFORMATION: (407) 896-4231 or omart.org.

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburst.com.

Miami Beach’s The Bass Adds New Leadership Role as Museum Expands

The Bass Museum of Art is anchored by the original 1930s building. The museum continues to expand, adding more exhibition space and a newly named an artistic director and chief curator who will be working alongside the Miami Beach museum’s executive director. (Photo by Zachary Balber, courtesy of The Bass)

The Bass is reshaping its leadership structure as the Miami Beach museum adds a new position aimed at strengthening its artistic direction and exhibition program.

Philippe Vergne, the former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Dia Art Foundation in New York, has been named to the newly created position of Artistic Director and Chief Curator and will work alongside Executive Director Silvia Karman Cubiña.

“I’ve been at this museum for 18 years,” said Cubiña. “It’s time to bring in some fresh, breezy, new vision and conversations. That’s really important. It’s a responsible thing to do.”

Philippe Vergne, newly appointed Artistic Director and Chief Curator of The Bass. (Photo by Joaquim Norte de Sousa)

In his new role, Vergne will serve as her “thought partner,” said Cubiña, with responsibility for the museum’s curatorial vision as it adds 2,500 square feet of exhibition spaces to the current 15,519.

After Curator James Voorhies left the museum in December to return to his home in New York, Cubiña reached out to Vergne, a long-time colleague who is currently director of the Serralves Contemporary Art Museum in Porto, Portugal. The conversation was unexpected, he said.

“But when I talked to Silvia, when I met some of the members of her board, I was very impressed by the ambition that her constituency has for the institution. I was impressed by the way the board of the museum has supported the museum… I was very excited by what I was hearing.”

Executive Director Silvia Karman Cubiña has led The Bass since 2008. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren, courtesy of The Bass)

And the timing was right. He had been in his current job since 2019. The Bass’s planned expansion was also enticing. “This is a very specific moment, to expand in a city which is itself expanding,” he said.

He will begin his new role Oct. 1.

The museum is working with the city to permit the expansion designed by Los Angeles-based architects Johnston Marklee and supported by a $20.1 million allocation from a 2022 public bond. The addition will solidify The Bass’s vision of a 2.9-acre campus of public art works and sheltered garden space anchored by the museum’s original 1930s façade designed by Miami architect Russell Pancoast. It will be museum’s third expansion since 2000.

Earlier this year, The Bass opened the renovated Rotunda in Collins Park, with an inviting glass entry and almost 2,000 square feet of exhibition space. Since then, attendance has grown by 33.8%, said Cubiña.

The new outdoor space is intended to broaden free access to art and better serve a mixed-income community of time-pressed young professionals and families with free programming that includes the museum’s Third Thursdays activations and access to the Rotunda.

Exhibitions and public programming will be part of Vergne’s portfolio. He will also work with global artists to expand The Bass’s ongoing program of commissions. In past years, those have included installations by marquee artists such as Mickalene Thomas, Rachel Feinstein and Tavaras Strachan.

“I’ve been very privileged to work in different communities in the United States and in Europe, so I have a network of artists,” said Vergne. “But not only artists; I have a network in the art community that will make available to the institution. It’s work that goes beyond pure curating.”

The Bass Museum of Arts’ Rotunda in Collins Park opened in March 2026. (Photo by Zaire Aranguren /Rheo Creative, courtesy of The Bass)

French-born Vergne began his museum leadership career as director of the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Marseille from 1994 to 1997 before moving to the United States. He later served as chief curator and deputy director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York and director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2006, he co-curated the Whitney Biennial with Chrissie Iles. He left LA MOCA in 2019 following a tumultuous year marked by internal and external dissent and was named director of Portugal’s Serralves Contemporary Art Museum a few months later.

Vergne’s experience running art institutions make him a strong fit for the role, said Cubiña. “He will be a great thought partner, but also a very practical thought partner, which is very important. He knows what it is to run an institution. He knows what it is to build an institution, and he understands timing.”

Those skills along with Vergne’s art world connections will help free Cubiña to focus on the other aspects of her job, she said. “I need to fundraise. I need to do my job right, and my job is dealing with the future, both the immediate and the long-term future of this museum. I get to do it full time now.”

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at  www.artburstmiami.com.

Artists Turn Margaritaville Inside Out at Locust Projects

A twelve-foot spilled margarita and a monumental pair of cargo shorts made from real sails in the site-specific installation “Lost Shaker of Salt” at Locust Projects through Saturday, June 20. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy of Locust Projects)

At first glance, “Lost Shaker of Salt” at Locust Projects in Little River appears to be a breezy summer diversion.

Upon entering the exhibition space, visitors encounter Kelly Breez and Patty Gone’s brightly colored homage to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville empire, anchored by a giant margarita knocked onto its side.

Oversized flip-flops are tacked on one wall. Humongous cargo shorts dangle upside down and dominate another area. A tiki-inspired sports bar with tropical-print stools and video screens occupies another corner.

Installation view of Kelly Breez and Patty Gone, “Lost Shaker of Salt,” 2026.at Locust Projects. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy of Locust Projects)

Two oversized Adirondack chairs face a campy performance-art film that traces a path from Caribbean sugar plantations and rum production to the modern fantasy of escape marketed by Margaritaville.

But Breez and Gone are selling something entirely different.

“I would say the concept of Margaritaville as a whole is that they’re selling you pure escapism,” says Breez, a Miami-based multidisciplinary artist. “Just vibes and happy hour and drinks and everything is fine. But there really is this absolute underlying dark side to Margaritaville, which was really what we wanted to dig a little deeper into.”

She compares the installation itself to that tension.

Visitors are invited to walk inside the margarita — a dense, found‑object sculptural environment of memorabilia-style elements assembled from collected materials. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy of Locust Projects)

“There’s this giant margarita, let’s go stand inside of it, and some Adirondack chairs, let’s have a sit. And giant shorts,” she says. “But inside there is this anti-colonialist memorial library.”

Visitors are invited to walk inside the margarita — a dense, found‑object sculptural environment of memorabilia-style elements.

“I’m a huge maximalist,” Breez says, explaining that her usual instinct is to fill a space with objects and materials. For this project, however, she deliberately pulled back, allowing the giant cargo shorts and margarita to become the focus.

Beneath the humor and nostalgia, the commissioned works are meant to evoke more complicated questions about who gets to be part of this paradise and who gets left out. Margaritaville isn’t just a kitschy theme — it points out a much larger critique of American culture.

Gone, a Los Angeles-based trans artist, poet and educator, approached Margaritaville from a different perspective than Breez. While Breez grew up immersed in South Florida boating culture, Gone became interested in what the lifestyle brand reveals about broader ideas of belonging and the balance of power.

Patty Gone and Kelly Breez inside the installation of the giant margarita surrounded by Breez’s found object art. (Photo by Logan Fazio, courtesy of the artists)

“Margaritaville is kind of like the gateway to thinking about a certain kind of straight white culture in Florida, but then maybe the U.S. more broadly,” Gone says.

She became particularly interested in the sports bar as a cultural symbol.

“I think about the bar itself as a sports bar, especially as a nexus of that kind of social culture,” Gone says. “A kind of patriarchal escapism.”

The centerpiece of the site-specific installation — a monumental pair of cargo shorts measuring 12 feet tall and 17 feet wide — carries a personal connection for Breez.

Many of the sails used to construct the oversized shorts came from the artist’s family sailing trips with her ather, including voyages to Key West.(Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy of Locust Projects)

A South Florida native, she grew up sailing with her father and listening to Buffett’s music on the water. Many of the sails used to construct the oversized shorts came from those family sailing trips, including voyages to Key West.

Built entirely from repurposed sailcloth, the sculpture required months of planning, fabrication and hand sewing. Breez worked alongside her father and stepmother, transforming their home into what she describes as “an absolute factory” during the construction process.

The giant shorts also function as the James William Buffett Anticolonialist Memorial Library.

Visitors can enter through the fly, then sit in the library among books selected by Gone examining tourism, colonization, sugar production and the history of the Caribbean and Latin America.

Visitors can enter through the fly of the giant cargo shorts, then take in books in the James William Buffett Anticolonialist Memorial Library.
(Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy of Locust Projects)

“There’s a lot of really good stuff in here about the beginning of the sugar trade and how that has to do with the beginning of cocktails,” Breez says.

Those themes reappear in Gone’s multi-channel video installation, which traces the history of the margarita far beyond the frozen cocktails served at chain restaurants and beach bars.

“I was trying to think of how we got here?” Gone says. “How did we get to this sports bar, Margaritaville culture?”

Researching the origins of mixed drinks led her into histories of colonial trade routes, sugar production and empire.

“The first mixed drink is made in India,” Gone says. “Mixed drink culture is so embedded with colonialism.”

The video follows that history from India to Europe and the Caribbean, where sugar production fueled colonial economies and transformed drinking culture.

One discovery particularly surprised her.

Film still of Xochitl Loco, Abhijeet “Moodzi” Mudgerikarin, and Elaina Moreno in
Patty Gone’s “Lost Shaker of Salt, 2026.” (Photo courtesy of Patty Gone)

“They’re drinking so much punch at the Declaration of Independence party,” Gone says. “It was wild to me to find that. They’re drinking all these mixed drinks made with ingredients connected to slave labor and that’s their official drink.”

Eventually the story arrives at Buffett himself, whose laid-back image became the foundation of a billion-dollar lifestyle brand that includes restaurants, resorts and retirement communities.

For Gone, that evolution became part of the exhibition’s larger narrative.

“When Jimmy Buffett comes in, he’s this countercultural figure at first,” she says. “Then where does it start to go?”

Neither artist is interested in simply mocking Buffett or his fans but examining the culture. The surroundings are familiar, but they are amplified.

For some visitors, that realization takes time.

Film still of Patty Gone in Patty Gone’s “Beachfront Views.” (Photo courtesy of Patty Gone)

“It takes a bit for satire to sink in sometimes,” Gone says. “It takes you to sit with it for a second.”

About 25 miles north of Locust Projects is the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, one of the most visible examples of the lifestyle brand built around Buffett and the promise of tropical escape. Proximity makes the exhibition’s examination of tourism, leisure and paradise feel even more relevant in South Florida.

At the installation’s opening, Breez recalls that many visitors initially responded to the colorful visuals and tropical atmosphere before discovering the exhibition’s deeper themes.

“Some people were ready to just call it cheery and summery,” she says. “But there are indications of the dark underbelly.”

Built entirely from repurposed sailcloth, the sculpture required months of planning, fabrication and hand sewing. (Photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy of Locust Projects)

There’s the sports bar, the memorabilia, a stacked cube monitor tower showing Buffet’s early videos, and there are the Big Pharma commercials playing on a loop at the sports bar promising the same feel-good lifestyle for the Boomer generation.

And then slowly the question sinks in — who is this “good life” really meant for?

WHAT: Kelly Breez and Patty Gone: “Lost Shaker of Salt”

 WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Through Saturday, June 20.

 WHERE: Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St., Miami

 COST: Free

 INFORMATION: (305) 576-8570 or locustprojects.org.

 ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Wade Tullier’s Deceptive Simplicity at Primary

Installation view of Wade Tullier: “Sky, Sea, Fruit, Hand, Seed.” at Primary (Photo courtesy Erin Parish)

At Primary in Miami’s Little River, the cool gray of the gallery sits in contrast with the midday sun and settles the exhibition into a steady tone that complements the works throughout. As a place without visual busyness, it is currently quietly punctuated by sculptures from the humblest of materials: ceramic. These are 2026 works by Wade Tullier. They establish a presence that feels measured and contained, with a subdued sense of joy.

The exhibition contains a fat totem, two petite wall pieces and a population of tabletop-sized sculptures. The latter sit atop cinderblock pedestals of varying height. This extends and aligns the architecture seamlessly into the installation, a purposeful counterpoint.

From left, Wade Tullier, “Hand with Fruit and Snake,” 2026
ceramic and glaze, 19 x 14 1/2 x 10 in. ; “Snake with Lemon and Boots.” 2026, ceramic and glaze
21 1/2 x 10 x 7 in ; “Boy with Flame,” 2026, ceramic and glaze, 42 x 14 x 15 in (Photo courtesy of Erin Parish)

Tullier titled his show un-evocatively: “Sky, Sea, Fruit, Hand, Seed.” This contrasts with the popular trend toward philosophically or sociologically complex exhibition titles. This probably stems from Damien Hirst’s infamous “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,” a.k.a. that shark sculpture. There can be an attempt to assign content through the title when it is absent in the works themselves.

However, Tullier describes: “I make sculptures that depict animals, figures, phenomena, and everyday objects. They are always recognizable but become elusive as I continue to reinterpret each piece. In this way, my sculptures act as characters in oral history: they transform as they are retold. While these objects remain familiar and are easily identifiable, the combinations of works remain ambiguous. They echo the layered, nonlinear structure of memory as it is excavated through storytelling.”

An eight-foot-tall totem of stacked fruit anchors the room: from the floor up, a blue hand holds a lemon, an orange and an oversized blueberry topped with an intense red apple. The leaves and fruit stems protrude to set up a rhythmic counterpoint. The scale brings a sense of familiarity into a different register. The configuration could be seen as a recollection of an odd American roadside attraction seen on a cross-country road trip. Without self-conscious “artistry,” its form echoes self-taught art, often appreciated for its revelations and connection to the spirit world.

“Hand with Lemon, Orange, Blueberry, and Apple,” 2026
ceramic and glaze, 96 x 37 x 27 in. (Photo courtesy of Erin Parish)

Positioned to the left behind the fruit, a single white owl rests on a branch segment. The placement carries a precise sense of balance across the width of the room. It punctuates the spread of cinderblocks while maintaining its own space. Here, less is more and we are nudged not to be too serious. However, within this context, more is revealed and it won’t be all fun and games.

Tullier states, “The imagery in my ceramics traces back to the stories I heard as a child growing up in southern Louisiana. The objects I create pull from this history of natural disasters and human-made catastrophes, chance encounters with wildlife, and occasionally my unsettling experience as a forensic sculptor and researcher. My work responds to the natural world in an effort of balancing pleasure with pain and danger with awe.”

A forensic sculptor is a specialist who reconstructs human faces onto unidentified skulls using clay and anthropological data to assist law enforcement in identifying human remains. A combination of science and art, the work adds another layer to the skill on display.

Snakes, hands, birds and vessels repeat in different configurations. The color blocks are simple and imply a child’s creation, yet they are referentially sophisticated. Hands appear in multiple works: holding a palm tree, cupping a small vessel, supporting a red pot with an emerging snake and sad plants — a Garden of Eden reference. Elsewhere, a cross sits atop a Día de los Muertos-like skull on a tree stump.

The snake reappears in “Snake with Lemon and Boots.” This time it is coiled atop black boots and a lemon. As one stands in front of this sculpture and looks down, there is a moment of amusement when one’s shoes echo the boots in the sculpture. You are looking at it. It is looking at you. Each piece contains a soul and the inherent contradictions within.

The stylization of the imagery is like that of milagros charms of Mexico. These are small devotional metal charms used across Latin America to symbolize prayers, gratitude or hopes. Traditionally, they are pinned to saints’ statues or altars as offerings for answered prayers or to ask for healing. These elements circulate and return with slight variation.

“Snake with Lemon and Boots.” 2026,
ceramic and glaze 21 1/2 x 10 x 7 in. (Photo courtesy of Erin Parish)

The glazing seems casual at first. However, it alternates not only in color but also in a specificity of finishes that reiterates each object’s presence in space and in relation to illumination. Surfaces alternate between matte and glossy, catching light. Above the grouping, the gallery lights are arranged like those for a Broadway stage. Color remains restrained, held in blocks with minimal internal variation. The tones stay slightly dulled, allowing each form to maintain its clarity without competing for attention.

Tullier received a BFA from Louisiana State University and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. His work has been shown nationally and internationally, with recent exhibitions in Miami, Chicago and Detroit.

Across the exhibition, the work builds through a consistency of weight and presence. Forms repeat, relationships remain active. Narrative stays embedded within the material, carried through scale and the placement of symbols. These works use plain speak, and the objects feel as though they could be found on a home altar containing fancy dress dolls, Saint Michael and a series of water-filled glasses.

WHAT: “Wade Tullier: Sky, Sea, Fruit, Hand, Seed”

WHERE: Primary, 7410 NW Miami Court, Miami

WHEN: 11 a.m. Thursday and Friday, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. Through Saturday, May 30

COST: Free

INFORMATION: (954) 296-1675 and thisisprimary.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at  www.artburstmiami.com.

Between Image and Memory: Alejandro Piñeiro Bello’s ‘ECOS’

Installation view of “ECOS” by Alejandro Piñeiro Bello at KDR, Miami.  (Photo by Rodrigo Gaya, courtesy of KDR, Miami)

In Alejandro Piñeiro Bello’s Little Haiti studio, the horizon is the only straight line.

It cuts across several of the canvases leaning against the walls—sometimes steady, sometimes dissolving into color—but always there, a point of orientation in paintings that otherwise refuse to settle. Around the room, forms emerge and dissolve: spirals, birds, clouds, fleeting figures. The space feels in motion, as if each painting were still in the process of becoming.

He is tall, with a focused, attentive energy; his movements are deliberate. In the studio, that attention informs how he sees. He speaks of clouds not as images to reproduce, but as edges to follow: a contour shifts, stretches, becomes a line. In his work, what begins as observation loosens into gesture, into something less fixed. A cloud becomes a curve; a curve turns into rhythm, and the paintings move between abstraction and figuration without fully belonging to either.

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, “La Tormenta,:” 2026, Oil on linen, 23 x 29 in.
(Photo by Rodrigo Gaya, courtesy of KDR, Miami)

“ECOS,” Piñeiro Bello’s current exhibition at KDR in Miami, on view through Saturday, May 23, presents a body of work from the past year that expands this approach. Rather than building a single narrative, the show develops as a system of echoes: ideas, images, and sensations that return across the canvases, altered. This openness extends to the material. Drawing from watercolor, Piñeiro Bello applies oil in thin, wash-like layers, so the surface holds color without weight: fluid and open. Forms gather and dissolve: an eye might emerge from a field of blue only to fold back into it.

In “La Tormenta (The Storm),” the surface thickens into a dense field of blues and violets, where forms surface and submerge at once. An eye appears near the center, suspended within a shifting mass that could be water or sky. Around it, fragments of bodies—limbs, profiles—emerge only to dissolve again. Nothing holds for long; the painting resists a fixed image, gathering sensations that move between recognition and dissolution.

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, “Tres Lindas Cubanas,” 2026, Oil on linen, 82 x 118 in.
(Photo by Rodrigo Gaya, courtesy of KDR, Miami)

For Katia Rosenthal, director of KDR, the exhibition unfolds less as a sequence than as a shift in feeling. “There’s a progression through the space from canvas to canvas,” she says, “not linear, but more emotional. As you move through the exhibition, something opens up; by the time you reach the larger paintings, you feel like you’ve traveled somewhere.” That movement is built through repetition. “A color or symbol in one painting reappears in another across the room, shifted in temperature or saturation,” she notes. “That repetition with variation is the architecture of the show—you’re moving through something that rhymes with itself.”

Language sits at the origin of this process. Piñeiro Bello keeps notebooks filled with phrases drawn from literature, music, and conversation that he later returns to. Books remain close to the canvases—spines worn, marked, returned to—so that reading and painting stay intertwined. He speaks of returning to writers such as Fernando Ortiz and Alejo Carpentier, not as references but as points of departure. These phrases are not captions added after the fact, but starting points. “They are like sketches,” he says. “I collect them, and then I organize a set of ideas.” Music is never far from that process.

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, “Adios A Cuba,” 2026, Oil on linen, 90 x 90 in.
(Photo by Rodrigo Gaya, courtesy of KDR, Miami)

Nearby, a turntable sits beside a keyboard on a table, surrounded by small photographs, postcards, and scattered objects. Music moves through the studio.

In “Adiós a Cuba” (Farewell to Cuba), a horizon stretches across the canvas beneath a luminous sky, while color moves restlessly below it, folding and drifting out of form. Birds cross the surface—elongated, almost weightless—their bodies suspended between flight and transformation.

 The title refers to a piano composition by Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905), written in 1875 during his exile from Cuba, a detail Piñeiro Bello kept returning to as he worked. 

The painting does not mourn the island; it holds the difficulty of leaving it—how something can remain vivid, even radiant, while no longer remaining inhabitable. The birds read as figures in passage, carrying both departure and what cannot be fully left behind. Their elongated forms recall the hybrid figures of Wifredo Lam, whom Piñeiro Bello invoked in the studio not as citation, but as a presence that continues to emerge.

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, “El Abrazo Del Mar,” 2025, Oil on linen, 65 x 140 in.
(Photo by Rodrigo Gaya, courtesy of KDR, Miami)

If “Adiós a Cuba” moves through departure, “El abrazo del mar” (“The Embrace of the Sea”) holds the opposite tension. A vast horizon divides sea and sky with unusual clarity. Yet beneath it, color refuses to settle. Lines ripple, expand, and collapse into one another, as if the painting were holding together multiple states at once: stillness and movement, surface and depth.

The horizon here is not only spatial, but temporal. It marks a threshold between what lies behind and what lies ahead. For those who have left the island, it is both limit and possibility, a line that separates while also suggesting passage. In the artist’s work, that ambiguity remains unresolved.

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, “Espirales De Nubes,” 2026, Oil on linen, 24 x 35 in. (Photo by Rodrigo Gaya, courtesy of KDR, Miami)

If these images feel expansive, even dreamlike, they are not nostalgic. Piñeiro Bello is clear about that. His relationship to Cuba is shaped by distance—eight years now—and by the impossibility of return. “The farther I go from Cuba,” he says, “the more Cuban I become.” Memory, in his work, is not a return to what was, but something constructed in the present: layered, reworked, carried forward.

The horizon remains, but nothing else settles. Across “ECOS,” forms resist becoming fixed—color continues to shift, images return only to dissolve again. The paintings do not fix memory into image; they keep it in motion, shifting, returning, continually reworked.

WHAT: “Ecos”

WHERE: KDR, 790 NW 22nd Street, Miami

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Through Saturday, May 23

INFORMATION: (305) 392.0416 and KDR

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Dahlia Dreszer Turns Memory Into Bloom at Miami Beach Botanical

“All That Remains” by Dahlia Dreszer is on exhibition at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden through Tuesday, May 26. Dreszer is also hosting workshop events throughout the month. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Dahlia Dreszer’s “All That Remains,” on view at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, is less a conventional exhibition than an immersive environment shaped by suspended photographic panels, preserved flowers rescued from past celebrations, and an AI-generated digital counterpart of the artist herself. The Miami-based, Panama-born artist transforms the garden’s gallery into a meditative space where large-scale photographic still lifes, dried botanicals, and technology coexist in thoughtful dialogue about memory, loss, and preservation. 

Dreszer’s practice has long explored identity, heritage, and the construction of home across diasporic experience. Rooted in her Latin American and Jewish background, her work often uses carefully staged imagery to merge the intimate and the symbolic.

Artist Dahlia Dreszer stands within her exhibition “All That Remains” at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, where suspended photographic works and preserved organic materials create an immersive meditation on memory and transformation. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

In “All That Remains,” however, those concerns become more personal and more vulnerable. The project was sparked by the death of her grandmother, Lily R. Rose, who named the artist after the dahlia flower and shared with her a lifelong love of gardens and preservation. 

That family connection anchors every aspect of the show. Dreszer explained that after her grandmother passed away, she began what she calls “rescue missions,” collecting discarded floral arrangements after weddings and events. Flowers destined for the trash became the raw material for remembrance. Hung upside down in bathtubs, closets, and corners of her home, they were dried, cataloged, and stored for years until they reemerged here as sculpture and image. What others considered waste became an archive. 

This act of salvaging gives the exhibition its emotional core. Dreszer is not simply preserving petals; she is preserving gestures, rituals, and relationships. She has described the flowers as symbols of family, aging, beauty, and impermanence. Those themes are evident throughout the installation, where the dried blooms carry a haunting elegance. They no longer possess the lush freshness associated with celebration, yet they have gained something deeper: history. 

Detail view of Dahlia Dreszer’s photographic work “All That Remains VIII,” where a preserved flower intersects with layered color and light, reflecting themes of impermanence and constructed memory. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

The photographs themselves are sumptuous and meticulously composed. Dreszer stages each image as a hybrid of still life, portrait, and psychological landscape. Wilted florals mingle with reflective heirlooms, painted surfaces, and found objects, many passed down through generations or carried through previous bodies of work. Vases and mirrored surfaces subtly reveal traces of the artist herself — a silhouette here, the glint of a camera there. She is both maker and participant, visible yet elusive. 

That tension between presence and disappearance is one of the exhibition’s strongest  qualities. Dreszer’s images feel theatrical, but never artificial in a hollow sense. She embraces staging as a way to tell truths that documentary realism cannot. Her camera, she suggests, is as interpretive as a paintbrush. The resulting works occupy an in-between space where reality is heightened, memory is choreographed, and symbolism blooms from everyday materials. 

Color plays a central role. Saturated reds, golds, and vivid tropical hues pulse through the compositions, recalling both Latin American visual culture and the emotional charge of family memory. Red, in particular, appears as a recurring note of vitality. Dreszer has connected it to her grandmother’s belief in optimism and resilience. Here it becomes a thread linking grief to celebration. 

The Botanical Garden provides an inspired setting. Outside the gallery walls, living plants continue their own cycles of budding, flowering, and decay. Inside, Dreszer presents flowers arrested in time. The contrast sharpens the exhibition’s central question: what does it mean to preserve something that was meant to fade? The scent of dried florals reportedly meets visitors as they enter, blurring boundaries between artwork and environment. Even the custom hanging structures were designed to respond to the gallery’s limited wall space and floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing natural light to participate in the installation. 

An interactive digital component, “Clone Dahlia,” in Dahlia Dreszer’s “All That Remains” invites viewers to engage directly with the artist’s image. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Yet “All That Remains” is not nostalgic. One of its most surprising dimensions is technological. A centerpiece of the exhibition is “Clone Dahlia,” an AI-generated digital version of the artist that interacts with visitors in real time. Rather than treating artificial intelligence as a gimmick or a threat, Dreszer frames it as a collaborator and a vessel. The clone responds to questions about the work, asks visitors about their own memories, and stores those exchanges as an evolving oral archive. 

This component could have felt trendy or distracting. Instead, it extends the show’s larger themes with intelligence. If flowers can preserve memory materially, perhaps technology can preserve it conversationally. If family stories risk disappearing with each generation, perhaps new tools can help carry them forward. Dreszer does not offer easy answers, but she asks timely questions about authorship, legacy, and simulated presence. 

Importantly, the AI element never overshadows the tactile richness of the physical work. The true power of the exhibition lies in its material intelligence: brittle petals, fragile stems, faded blossoms, and reflective surfaces, arranged with painterly care. Dreszer understands that grief is experienced through objects as much as ideas. We keep the scarf, the vase, the bouquet, and the letter. We assign emotion to matter because matter outlasts the moment. 

There is also generosity in the project. Dreszer has spoken of wanting visitors to discover their own meanings rather than be told what to think. That openness gives the exhibition broad resonance. One need not share her biography to feel the poignancy of trying to hold onto something already passing. 

Miami’s art scene often prizes spectacle, speed, and novelty. “All That Remains” offers something rarer: slowness, reflection, and tenderness. It asks viewers to look carefully at what has withered and to recognize beauty there. It reminds us that endings can be fertile ground for transformation. 

In a city built on reinvention, Dreszer has created a quietly moving show about what survives it. “All That Remains” is less concerned with loss than with continuity — the ways love lingers in color, in gesture, in flowers rescued from the edge of disappearance. 

WHAT: Dahlia Dreszer: All That Remains 

WHERE: Miami Beach Botanical Garden, 2000 Convention Center, Miami Beach 

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Sundays. Through Tuesday, May 26. Mother’s Day Floral workshop, 2 to 4 p.m., Sunday, May 10; 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 20, artist talk Dahliah Dreszer in conversation with José Carlos Díaz (chief curator, Pérez Art Museum Miami); 11:30 a.m., Thursday, May 21, Flower Crown workshop 

COST: Free but RSVP requested. 

INFORMATION:  (305) 673-7256 and mbgarden.org 

 ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.  

HistoryMiami becomes Museum of Miami in shift toward county-wide outreach

The new Museum of Miami, formerly the HistoryMiami Museum. (Photo courtesy of Museum of Miami

The institution known for almost two decades as HistoryMiami Museum is changing its name to the Museum of Miami to reflect a countywide “museum without walls” mission.

The name change is only a small part of a deeper transformation for one of the oldest cultural institutions continuously operating in South Florida, and housed inside the Miami-Dade Cultural Center area downtown on West Flagler Street.

“It’s more than a name change. That’s just the visible part,” says Natalia Crujeiras, chief executive officer of Museum of Miami. “It’s really about a deeper shift about how we think a museum can really, truly serve a city like ours.”

The shift follows three years of research and listening sessions in neighborhoods across Miami-Dade — from Homestead to Overtown and Liberty City to Miami Beach, according to Crujeiras. The recurring message was that HistoryMiami Museum “made a lot of people feel like they didn’t belong here, or our content was not for them.”

A “Wish Wall” will invite Miamians to imagine the future of their city and their country. (Rendering courtesy of Museum of Miami)

For some, the word “history” was the stop gap.

“The word history felt sometimes distant or like a school assignment,” she explains. “Or for many people that come from other places, there was a deeper connection for the places of their home countries or the places they relocated from.”

While she maintains that the museum will still serve as a repository of the area’s history, it will broaden its accessibility.

“In many ways it’s kind of we’re expanding our scope, rather than limiting it to one tool or one discipline,” she says. “History is a core component of what the museum does, but we also care about culture and art and community; all of the things that make Miami, Miami.”

Natalia Crujeiras, Museum of Miami’s CEO and Executive Director. (Photo  Museum of Miami)

The rebrand, says Crujeiras, is rooted in a bigger question: What does it mean to be a Miamian, and how do people feel they belong here?

“Miami is one of the fastest growing and most dynamic cities in the world, and that diversity makes us exciting and dynamic, but it also comes with a cost. Neighborhoods change quickly. Community shifts. New residents arrive, and many are not connected to Miami. For many it’s hard to answer a question like, ‘What is a Miamian? How do I fit in this place?’”

One of the most concrete shifts is how the Museum of Miami will show up for residents. She says that there shouldn’t be an expectation that people will make their way downtown to visit the museum.

“We realized that we can’t continue to wait for people to come to us only,” Crujeiras says. “What we heard is that Miamians want us to come to them as well.”

The museum will keep its West Flagler Street home as “a hub, a place where you can access our collections and see our extraordinary artifacts” — but the new strategy is to get out into the community.

“We want to have programs, experiences, exhibitions across the entire county.”

The “museum without walls” model was well underway before the name change was announced.

“We just had a program in Miami Dade College’s Homestead campus, connected to our current exhibition, but we brought the program to that community, and it’s really leaning into that, in making sure that every place in Miami can be a vehicle to take our stories. We want to be wherever people live, learn and gather.”

Even as it moves forward, the Museum of Miami maintains its deep roots.

The courtyard of the HistoryMiamiMuseum, now the Museum of Miami. (Courtesy of Museum of Miami)

Originally formed as the Historical Association of Southern Florida and founded in 1940, it moved through several homes and evolutions before becoming HistoryMiami Museum and, now, Museum of Miami. The original name was the Historical Association of Southern Florida.

“We began with collecting little things in a storage cabinet at the University of Miami,” says Crujeiras. Over time, it became a collecting institution and in the 1980s, Miami-Dade County built the Cultural Plaza to house the main library and what was then the Center for Fine Arts and the then Historical Association of Southern Florida.

Its name was changed to the Historical Museum of Southern Florida in 1962 and then HistoryMiamiMuseum in 2010.

The museum holds what Crujeiras calls “the largest leading archive about Miami.”

“We have the first photos, the glass negatives, the first images that were taken of Miami in the late 1800s; letters of exchange between Henry Flagler and Julia Tuttle to convince him to build the railroad. We have over two million photographs and more than 40,000 artifacts.”

A letter from the late 1890s from Henry Flagler to Julia Tuttle, as part of their correspondence for Flagler to extend his railway to Miami is in Museum of Miami (formerly the HistoryMiami Museum’s) archives. (Photo courtesy of Museum of Miami)

There are also emotional tales reflected in installations. “We have rafts used by Cuban refugees and Haitian refugees. That shows really the trauma and the risk and the hope and opportunity for so many of our community members that had to have been forced to relocate seeking freedom.”

And one of the most popular attractions is the electric trolley from the 1920s.

“It was the main vehicle for public transportation in the 1920s, which happened to be segregated. We can have a conversation about that part of our history in an artifact where you can actually get in and sit down. It is very personal and very emotional to try to put yourself in the experience of people that came before us.”

As part of its new chapter, the Museum of Miami will host a rare traveling exhibition from the National Archives.

As the museum reaches beyond its walls, it’s also rethinking how people experience its stories. (Photo rendering of Wish for America wall courtesy of Museum of Miami)

The Smithsonian affiliate is one of only eight sites in the country that the National Archives has chosen to show “the original documents that forged our nation,” Crujeiras says. “For the Fourth of July, starting on Saturday, June 20 and through Sunday, July 5, we will have the Oath of Allegiance signed by Washington and Hamilton and Burr. We’re going to have the Treaty of Paris. We’re going to have the first annotated version of the Bill of Rights. These are the original documents of our country.”

The exhibit will be paired with an interactive mural inviting Miamians to imagine the future of their city and country.

“We’re inviting Miamians to dream up what is the country and the city they want to build for the future and asking based on what Miami is today, ‘What is it you want to see in the future?”

As the museum reaches beyond its walls, it’s also rethinking how people experience its stories.

“We need to understand that, especially young audiences, consume content in a different way, and they want to have interactivity and digital stuff, and they want to lead what they experience. We’re making efforts to digitize more things from our collection, to make it accessible.

She says she hopes the rebrand will awaken old memories and power forward a new momentum.

“I think this institution holds important memories of our community, and we want to turn that memory into motion and to think, ‘Okay, what is it that Miami wants to become, and how we can use this place as a vehicle to build that understanding?’ ”

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com

Across Centuries and Cultures: ‘The Light of the World’ Traces Images of Christ in Art

Olga M. and Carlos A. Saladrigas Gallery at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School presents “The Light of the World,” curated by Carol Damian and Adriana Herrera, on view through Wednesday, May 6. (Photo by Phillip Karp, courtesy of Ignacio Font)

At the Olga M. and Carlos A. Saladrigas Gallery at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, “The Light of the World” bridges historical reverence with contemporary relevance. Curated by Carol Damian, a longtime Miami art historian and former director of FIU’s Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, and Adriana Herrera, an independent curator and writer focused on Latin American art, the exhibition traces artistic interpretations of Jesus Christ across centuries, cultures and media.

Rather than presenting devotion as fixed, the exhibition reveals it as something shaped by culture, memory, and lived experience. Moving through the gallery, viewers encounter a dialogue between past and present—one that reflects both continuity and transformation.

A 17th-century Cuzco School painting of “St. Joseph with the Christ Child” introduces this dialogue with quiet intimacy. The composition is tender and grounded: Joseph cradles the child, both figures haloed and framed by delicate floral motifs. The work carries the visual language of colonial Latin American religious painting, yet its emotional accessibility feels immediate. It sets the tone for the exhibition’s central premise—that sacred imagery, while rooted in tradition, is always evolving in its expression.

A Belen Jesuit student views Brazilian artist Vik Muniz’s “The Crucifixion, after Thomas Eakins” (2011), collage, in “The Light of the World,” curated by Carol Damian and Adriana Herrera, on view through Wednesday, May 6. (Photo by Suzzane Sardina and Ignacio Font, courtesy of Saladrigas Gallery at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School)

That evolution becomes strikingly apparent in contemporary works that reinterpret canonical imagery through new materials and perspectives. Brazilian artist Vik Muniz’s “The Crucifixion,” after Thomas Eakins (2011), transforms a familiar scene into a densely layered composition constructed from fragments of printed media. From a distance, the crucified figure is clearly legible. Up close, however, it dissolves into a chaotic accumulation of images—faces, textures, and visual debris—suggesting a world overwhelmed by information. In Muniz’s hands, the crucifixion becomes not only a symbol of sacrifice but also a reflection of contemporary visual culture, where meaning is both constructed and obscured.

Material experimentation continues in Stella Bernal de Parra’s “Mi Cristiano” (1973), a suspended textile that evokes the human body through woven wool and elongated strands. The work resists direct representation, instead suggesting presence through form and gravity. Hanging in space, it reads as both garment and relic, its tactile surface emphasizing labor and devotion. The piece invites viewers to consider faith not as an abstract concept, but as something embodied—stitched, woven, and carried over time.

Narrative returns powerfully in Darío Ortiz’s “The Last Supper” (2026), where the biblical scene is relocated to a contemporary environment marked by subtle signs of instability. The figures surrounding Christ wear modern clothing, their gestures subdued and contemplative. Rather than dramatizing the moment, Ortiz renders it as a quiet gathering, emphasizing the story’s human dimension. The work suggests that the sacred does not exist outside of history, but continues to unfold within it.

ilvia Dorfsman, local art dealer and appraiser, views Karim Borjas’ “Ecce Homo” (2006), a photographic installation featuring red strings, while Olga Garcia-Mayoral, curator and writer, reflects on Erik Ravelo’s “Señor, Dame Luz” (2009), a C-print in “The Light of the World”  at the Olga M. and Carlos A. Saladrigas Gallery at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School. (Photo by Teresa Martinez, courtesy of Ignacio Font)

The exhibition also foregrounds artists who engage sacred imagery through inherited craft traditions. In Jesús Tax’s “Sustained Investigation” (2022), Christ’s face emerges through an intricate network of threads stretched across nails. The technique, rooted in textile, practices passed down through generations, transforms the act of making into a devotional gesture. The tension of the threads creates a dynamic surface, where image and structure are inseparable, reflecting both fragility and resilience.

Elsewhere, Pablo Cano’s “Westinghouse Basilica” (1979) reimagines the icon through found objects. A vintage refrigerator becomes a devotional structure, its doors opening to reveal painted religious imagery. The work carries a subtle humor and a deeper resonance: it collapses the boundary between the sacred and the everyday, suggesting that spirituality can inhabit even the most ordinary spaces.

Drawing plays a quieter yet equally significant role in the exhibition. In works by Fernanda Frangetto, including her “Via Crucis series” and “The Risen Jesus”, the figure of Christ dissolves into fields of color. Rendered in soft charcoal and pastel tones, the images feel ephemeral, as if emerging from light itself. Rather than defining the body, Frangetto allows it to disperse, emphasizing sensation over structure. These works offer a moment of stillness within the exhibition, inviting contemplation through their subtlety.

Throughout the gallery, the curatorial vision becomes increasingly clear: this is not simply an exhibition about representation, but about interpretation. Each artist approaches the figure of Christ from a distinct perspective, shaped by geography, material, and personal experience. Together, the works form a constellation of voices that expand the meaning of sacred art beyond any single tradition.

Installation view of “The Light of the World,” curated by Carol Damian and Adriana Herrera, at the Olga M. and Carlos A. Saladrigas Gallery at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, on view through Wednesday, May 6. (Photo by Phillip Karp, courtesy of Ignacio Font)

What makes “The Light of the World” particularly compelling is its ability to bridge historical reverence with contemporary relevance. The exhibition does not attempt to resolve the tension between past and present; instead, it allows that tension to remain visible. In doing so, it reflects the ongoing role of art in shaping our understanding of spirituality, identity, and community.

In a cultural moment often defined by fragmentation, the exhibition offers something quieter yet enduring: a space for reflection. Through painting, textile, drawing, and assemblage, these artists remind us that the sacred is not static. It is something continually reimagined—held, questioned, and brought into the present through acts of creation.

WHAT: The Light of the World

WHERE: Olga M. and Carlos Saladrigas Art Gallery, Ignatian Center for the Arts, Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, 500 SW 127 Ave., Miami

WHEN: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday or by appointment. Through Wednesday, May 6. Closing reception from 7 to 9 p.m., Wednesday, May 6.

 COST: Free

INFORMATION: (786) 621-4170 or ifont@belenjesuit.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com

‘Anchors of Light’ Reframes 30 Years of MOCA North Miami

Luis Gispert, “Untitled (Living Room)” 2003 is part of “Anchors of Light” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and features many artists from the museum’s history. The show is on display through Sunday, Oct. 4. (Photo courtesy of the artist and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami)

As the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami celebrates its 30th anniversary, a new exhibition is as much about looking back as it is about moving forward.

Focusing on works from the museum’s collection, “Anchors of Light,” which opened on Wednesday, April 15, features many artists from the museum’s history. Nearly 50 artists are represented in a presentation that spans historical artists (Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenberg), past retrospective subjects (Maryan S. Maryan, Edouard Duval-Carrie), and beloved locals (Purvis Young, Pepe Mar).

Alfredo Jaar, “A Logo for America,” 1995. (Photo courtesy of the artist and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami)

But it’s also a platform for ambitious new voices. The museum invited Catherine Camargo, a Miami native and founder of the ultracontemporary Queue Gallery, to curate the show. Camargo is known for consciously programming art that runs against the usual perceptions of Miami’s scene, and her predilection towards dark and muted colors and unconventional materials shines through. A perfect example comes in the Will Boone painting that gives the show a bold opening statement. “Widowmaker” features horizontal gray and black stripes underneath a thin, pink circular outline that can be taken for a solar form, an apt visual metaphor for Miami as a place where sunny weather often provides a thin façade for moral shades of gray.

“The guest curator program at MOCA overall has a goal of providing a platform for different voices and perspectives,” says Chana Sheldon, the museum’s executive director, “and bringing in someone like Catherine to have a fresh look at works that our team and some of our visitors know always brings about really exciting results.”

One interesting segment comes in the form of a “video corridor,” in which a group of six flat-screen TVs protrude from the walls, allowing visitors to watch video artworks as they walk through. Camargo says the idea came from space constraints: she wanted to show multiple video works but didn’t want to build multiple separate screening rooms, such as the one reserved for the Ragnar Kjartansson installation “God.”

The museum invited Catherine Camargo, a Miami native and founder of the ultracontemporary Queue Gallery, to curate the show. (Photo by Zachary Balber)

“I knew I couldn’t have a room for each piece,” she says. “They have a lot of amazing films in the collection, and I was getting to the point where my list of works to be shown felt never ending. And I was worried about space. So I came up with the idea of having a video corridor so that I could arrange these videos in a way where people can still interact with it.”

That ingenuity also came in handy when confronted with another critical issue, the size of the collection and the works that are no longer there. Although MOCA’s collection of some 600 artworks is smaller than other local institutions – the Pérez Art Museum Miami claims almost 3,000 pieces, while the privately-owned Rubell Museum owns over 7,700 – its age reflects the museum’s pioneer status within the local art scene. The collection is as old as the museum building itself, which opened in 1996 as an evolution of the former Center for Contemporary Art under Bonnie Clearwater, now director and chief curator at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale.

The “Miami School” section focuses on works from artists that made their careers in South Florida, such as Cano, Robert Chambers, and Purvis Young. (Photo by Zachary Balber)

“The idea was to create a program and a collection that would resonate with the South Florida art audiences, and also…that it would be an international museum located in North Miami,” Clearwater says. “We were a hybrid between a community center and an international museum of contemporary art, and we basically were able to maintain that vision all the way through and bring some of the best works to Miami, as well as bringing attention to the incredible, dynamic artist scene that was developing at that time.”

Under Clearwater’s leadership, MOCA quickly made a name for itself exhibiting major contemporary artists, giving retrospectives to starry names such as Keith Haring and Roy Lichtenstein as well as platforming locals such as Pablo Cano and Teresita Fernandez. Few other local institutions were seriously collecting at the time, and some hadn’t even been founded yet in the pre-Art Basel period.

After she left in 2013, a bitter dispute ensued between the City of North Miami, which owns the museum, and the board, which included collectors such as Irma Braman and Ray Ellen Yarkin. Both the city and the patrons made ownership claims on the museum’s collection, and a settlement resulted in MOCA retaining the majority but losing a portion of key objects as the board defected to form the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.

Since then, MOCA has continued to platform major contemporary artists, but in a way that centers North Miami’s diverse population. Recent years have seen shows from Haitian heritage artists like Manuel Mathieu and Didier William as well as art world stars like Cecilia Vicuña and Lonnie Holley, and the museum is one of the few in the United States that provides artwork information in Haitian Creole.

Pat Steir, “From the Sea, Wave After Courbet,” 1984. (Photo courtesy of the artist and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami)

Still, Camargo found she had less to work with than she expected. The ICA ended up taking pieces by big name artists including James Turrell, Ed Ruscha, Dan Flavin and Raymond Pettibon. “The ICA split definitely did alter what was left in the collection and kind of changed a lot of the story I was able to tell,” she says. “It forced me to focus on what remained, and there were still so many gems that I was able to pull out, and that was exciting. But that was definitely something that presented itself as a challenge.”

So, how does a curator tell a comprehensive story when so many of the pieces that form MOCA’s history are unavailable? Certainly, a few big names are still present, including a video installation from Ragnar Kjartansson and works on paper from Pat Steir and Jose Bedia.

Beyond that, it came down to celebrating Miami and its artists. The “Miami School” section focuses on works from artists that made their careers in South Florida, such as Cano, Robert Chambers, and Purvis Young. Connections are made to a show curated by Clearwater, “Defining the ‘90s,” that was one of the first attempts at placing Miami on the same level as New York and Los Angeles as a major contemporary art scene.

Works throughout “Anchors of Light” reflect the themes that animate the artistic discourse that takes place in South Florida. (Photo by Zachary Balber)

Works throughout the show reflect the themes that animate the artistic discourse that takes place in South Florida. Artworks in “The Body” reflect the city’s obsession with the material world, from Tom Wesselman and Alex Katz’s pop-centric odes to skin contact to Luis Gispert’s photo of his own Cuban family’s living room, decorated floor to ceiling with faux-baroque kitsch.

Alfredo Jaar’s “A Logo for America” famously recenters the broader Latin conception of the bi-continental landmass, arguing against U.S. exceptionalism – appropriate for a city that considers itself the capital of Latin America.

Much has changed in Miami in the 30 years since MOCA’s founding, but as many moments in “Anchors of Light” attest to, just as much has remained the same.

 WHAT: “Anchors of Light”

 WHEN: Through Sunday, Oct. 4.

 WHERE: Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, 770 NE 125 St., North Miami

 COST: $10 for general admission; $5 for seniors, students with ID, youth ages 12 to 17, and visitors identifying as disabled; free for children under 12, North Miami residents, city employees, veterans, and caregivers of disabled visitors.

 INFORMATION: 305-893-6211 or mocanomi.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com

‘Get in the Game’ at PAMM Puts Sports and Art on a level playing field

Hank Willis Thomas’ 2016 work “Guernica,” a mixed-media work that recreates Pablo Picasso’s famous antiwar image with NBA jerseys instead of human figures is featured in “Get in the Games: Sports, Art, Culture,” at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) through Sunday, Aug. 23. (Photo courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York) 

Pick a side: the clamor of the stadium or the calm of the museum. Are you Team Sports or Team Arts? At the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), “Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture” challenges the age-old divide to bridge the cultural gap between the two.

The exhibition aims to reconcile the athlete’s arena and the artist’s studio and serves as a reminder that whether someone wears a jersey or a museum wristband, the quest for excellence remains the same.

On display through Sunday, Aug. 23, “Get in the Game” features more than 100 works by artists from around the world and showcases sports memorabilia, including vintage sneakers, racing equipment, and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Men’s and Women’s World Cup soccer balls from 1930 to 2023.

Emma Amos’s “Hurdlers I” (1983) blends painting and textile, depicting women athletes in mid-leap while incorporating handwoven elements that reference African kente cloth. (Photo by Lazaro Llanes, courtesy of Pérez Art Miami Museum)

Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and presented in Miami with locally focused additions, the exhibition arrives in the wake of events like the Miami Open and as the Magic City continues to host global spectacles such as Formula 1 in May while preparing for the FIFA World Cup 2026 at Hard Rock Stadium in July.

Franklin Sirmans, PAMM’s director and organizer of the museum’s presentation, believes the timing adds to its significance. “I think sports and arts deserve deeper exploration in museum exhibitions,” he says. “This show is at PAMM in a year of unprecedented presentations of sport on the national and world stage.”

He sees the exhibition not just in terms of what spectators witness on the field, court, or track, but also in how those events resonate in memory and imagination. “The exhibition pauses and creates space for conversations and reflections on how these events impact us,” Sirmans explains.

Ernie Barnes’s “Fumble in the Line” (1990), where football players are depicted in exaggerated, almost sculptural forms. (Photo by Lazaro Llanes, courtesy of Pérez Art Miami Museum)

Fabiana A. Sotillo, a curatorial assistant and co-curator of PAMM’s show, says her outsider perspective on sports shaped how the exhibition was recontextualized for local audiences. “When I started working on the presentation of ‘Get in the Game’ at PAMM with Franklin, I was aware that this show would be a challenge for me due to the fact that I am not as knowledgeable about sports as Franklin is,” she shares. “However, what I thought would be a disadvantage for us ended up being a very valuable aspect of our presentation in Miami.”

As the curator and writer of the exhibition’s materials, Sotillo explains that her unfamiliarity allowed her to consider visitors who might feel intimidated by sports, as well as those who might feel they would be out of place in a contemporary art museum. “My lack of sports knowledge ended up being an advantage, since I really catered the exhibition materials to those who may be intimidated by the idea of sports, but also considered the other side of the coin: those who might be intimidated by art,” she says. “We were able to build a presentation that truly caters to every type of visitor: sports fans, art admirers, young visitors, etc.”

“I think sports and the arts are worthy of much deeper exploration in museum exhibitions,” says Franklin Sirmans, director of Pérez Art Museum Miami and organizer of the museum’s presentation of “Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture.” (Photo by Lazaro Llanes, courtesy of Pérez Art Museum Miami)

As a result, the exhibition is divided into six thematic sections: Fandom, Winning and Losing, Breaking Records and Rules, Count Me In, Field of Play, and Mind and Body. Sotillo emphasizes the goal is not to dictate a story but to create a space where viewers can connect with both fields without needing any prior expertise.

“Sports, arts, culture—these are all community builders,” Sotillo says. “Both athletes and fans experience such intense emotions during competitions, and art is all about capturing emotions and expressing ideas.”

This focus on emotion appears in works like Ernie Barnes’s “Fumble in the Line” (1990), which depicts football players in exaggerated, almost sculptural forms. Their bodies collide in a chaotic struggle that reflects both the brutality and beauty of the game. Barnes, a former professional football player, is known for translating his personal experiences into art that highlights movement, tension, and rhythm.

Featuring more than 100 works by artists from around the world—including highlights from PAMM’s collection—”Get in the Game” demonstrates how sport has inspired both personal expression and shared cultural memory. On display at PAMM through Sunday, Aug. 23. (Photo by Lazaro Llanes, courtesy of Pérez Art Museum Miami)

Emma Amos’s “Hurdlers I” (1983) blends painting with textiles, showing women athletes mid-leap while incorporating handwoven elements that reference African kente cloth. The piece links physical endurance with cultural identity, considering the show’s broader themes of how sports intersect with race, gender, and history.

One of the most striking pieces is Hank Willis Thomas’ 2016 work “Guernica,” a mixed-media work that recreates Pablo Picasso’s famous antiwar image with NBA jerseys instead of human figures. According to art curator Jason Jenn, this piece prompts the viewer to reflect on how themes of war and sacrifice in the original piece relate to the struggles faced by professional athletes and the challenges they overcome to entertain fans.

Nearby, Holly Bass’ “NWBA (Jordan)” (2012) captures the artist mid-air, her silhouette transformed with basketballs in a photo that is playful, athletic, glamorous, and critical.

Holly Bass’ “NWBA (jordan)” 2012 freezes the artist in midair, her silhouette transformed through the incorporation of basketballs in a photograph. (Photo by Lazaro Llanes, courtesy of Perez Art Miami Museum)

Bass says the image was inspired by Michael Jordan’s iconic “Jump Man” logo, which itself has roots in dance. “It was originally inspired by a photo of Jordan imitating a ballet dancer doing a grand jeté,” she says. “So it’s kind of like art imitating sports imitating art.” She emphasizes that the work’s athleticism is real, not simulated. “This isn’t Photoshop or some kind of wire suspending me in the air. I’m a trained dancer.”

The exhibition frequently revisits the theme of bodies under pressure, whether in triumph, strain, spectacle, or change. Jake Troyli, a professional artist who lives in Brooklyn and whose work is included in “Get in the Game,” played Division I basketball at Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C. He says his background in sports has shaped his views on performance and spectatorship. “As I started to gain some distance between myself and my time playing in the NCAA, I began to turn a critical eye toward the dynamic of the spectator/spectacle relationship,” he says. “What does it mean to perform? What does it mean to perform for a hungry audience? What does it mean for so much of a person’s self or self-worth to be tied up in the results of the performance?”

Jake Troyli, a professional artist who once played Division I basketball in college said his experience as an athlete led him to think more critically about performance and spectatorship. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

These questions extend beyond sports; they also relate to the conditions many artists face, particularly in public forums where creation and judgment feel immediate. This parallel resonates with artist Cheryl Pope, who is both a visual artist and a boxer. Pope, who won the Chicago Golden Gloves in 2014, considers boxing fundamental to her understanding of art. “My experience of boxing has been critical to my understanding of being an artist,” she says. Training and competition taught her discipline, positive thinking, and how to manage risk, which later informed her studio practice.

The exhibition’s educational programming is also designed to show how sports can connect visitors to museums. Marie Vickles, PAMM’s senior director of education, says the show offers “a really exciting and accessible entry point for visitors of all ages and backgrounds to engage with art via an avenue that everyone is familiar with—sports.” Her team has organized tours, workshops, public talks, screenings, and hands-on activities aimed at youth, educators, adults, and families.

Work by Cheryl Pope. Top: variety jacket from the series I’VE BEEN HEARD, 2016. Below, customized sneakers. (Photo by Lazaro Llanes, courtesy of Perez Art Miami Museum)

“The universal themes of teamwork, discipline, resilience and perseverance across sports and arts have provided us with ways to craft experiences that make folks feel welcome in a museum,” Vickles says. During the opening week, PAMM hosted the first session of “GAME TIME,” a two-day conference bringing together artists, athletes, poets, curators, journalists, and performers. Sirmans described the gathering as an added layer of interpretation, with a second session planned for Friday, June 26.

Lee Moriarty, a professional wrestler and visual artist who took part in “GAME TIME,” sees a connection that already exists in his own life. “I think both wrestling and art have always been connected and have influenced each other so it’s great to see it being explored deeper,” he says. For Moriarty, wrestling naturally combines sport and art, blending athletic skill with theater, imagery, storytelling, and performance.

Lee Moriarty’s “Summer Garden Selfie,” 2024. (Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, gift of Adam Abdalla)

The exhibition also ensures its global perspective reflects Miami. Sirmans noted that the museum included works and references that resonate locally, such as sketches by LeRoy Neiman of Muhammad Ali in Miami Beach and a podcast made with the young girls of Little Haiti Football Club.

These additions help tie the show’s broader themes to local experiences.

Especially visible in the display are World Cup soccer balls produced by Adidas, stretching from the early leather era to highly engineered contemporary designs. (Photo by Jonel Juste)

By the time visitors leave PAMM, Sirmans hopes they will no longer view sports and art as separate worlds. “Sports and arts are metaphors for our lives and there’s room for all and inspiration to be found in a consideration of games in our lives.”

WHAT: “Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture”

WHERE: Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), 1103 Biscayne Blvd, Miami

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Friday and Saturday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday; 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday.

COST: $18 adults; $14 seniors 62 and older, students with ID, and ages 7 to 18; free for members, children 6 and under, and free admission for all on Thursdays after 5 p.m.; Other free admissions with ID: active U.S. military and veterans, health care professionals and first responders, Florida educators, and visitors identifying as disabled and their accompanying caregiver.

INFORMATION: (305) 375-3000 or pamm.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

A Circle of Cuban Art at Westchester Regional Library

Installation view of “Circular Reflections” at the Westchester Regional Library. The exhibition, featuring work by more than 80 Cuban artists, will be on view through June. (Photo courtesy of Miguel Rodez)

The latest exhibition at the Westchester Regional Library brings together more than 80 contemporary Cuban artists, each working within a shared constraint: a 21-inch circular format that reveals a wide range of approaches, styles and generations.

Organized in collaboration with the Miami-Dade Public Library System, the exhibition, which opened on Friday, April 3 and continues through Thursday, June 25, unfolds as a traveling, evolving project that resists a single narrative. Rather than grouping artists around a theme, curator Miguel Rodez invited each participant to work within the circular format while maintaining their own visual language.

The result is a wide-ranging presentation that reflects the diversity of Cuban artistic production across generations and geographies.

Curator Miguel Rodez with works from “Circular Reflections,” a project he developed over nearly a decade to document the breadth of contemporary Cuban art. (Photo by Oscar Fuentes, courtesy of Miguel Rodez)

Rodez, a Miami-based artist and independent curator, began developing the exhibition nearly a decade ago. Over time, the initiative expanded beyond its initial scope, evolving into what he describes as both a traveling show and an ongoing record of Cuban visual culture.

“ ‘Circular Reflections’ is a growing, traveling, large-scale contemporary art exhibition and living documentation of Cuban visual creativity,” Rodez said.

The defining gesture of the exhibition, the circle, operates as both formal constraint and conceptual device.

“The project shuns the traditional rectangle format, which boxes in a narrative, in favor of a round portal that transports the audience wherever the artist’s imagination leads,” he said.

For artists accustomed to rectangular composition, that shift required adjustment and opened new ways of organizing space.

Ismael Gómez Peralta, a Cuban-born artist based in Miami whose work often explores architecture and memory, says the circular format posed an initial challenge but ultimately aligned with his existing practice.

Ismael Gómez Peralta at his studio, where he builds layered compositions rooted in memory, architecture and lived experience. (Photo by Miguel Rodez)

“Normally we all work in a rectangular format. It’s the traditional structure,” he said. “Here, the challenge was to rethink that space without losing what I do.”

Rather than adopting a radial or mandala-like composition, Gómez Peralta maintained the architectural logic that defines his work, grounded in structure, weight and spatial tension.

“I kept my sense of gravity, my structures in space,” he said. “I didn’t want to lose that.”

His process begins with an abstract foundation.

“I start by releasing paint across the entire surface, building a kind of base,” he said. “I familiarize myself with the space. I ‘heal’ it, in a way.”

From there, the composition emerges through a balance of intuition and memory.

“I don’t rely on cold reasoning,” he said. “I let instinct guide me, what I’m feeling at that moment.”

The imagery in his piece draws from two long-standing bodies of work: his series on the ruins of Havana and another focusing on cathedral-like structures, developed after the death of his mother.

“I wanted those two elements to come together,” he said. “The ruin and the cathedral, destruction and something more elevated.”

That duality reflects a broader meditation shaped by distance from Cuba, where he lived through the economic crisis of the 1990s before relocating to the United States in 2002.

“Living outside Cuba gives you perspective,” he said. “When you’re inside, you’re too close, almost like a victim of the situation. From a distance, you can process memory differently.”

Work by Ismael Gómez Peralta featured in “Circular Reflections,” combining architectural structures and emotional memory into a composition that reflects both loss and resilience. (Photo by Miguel Rodez)

His work often holds that tension: decay and endurance, loss and continuity.

“There is beauty in Cuba,” he said. “Even within destruction, there is hope.”

While Gómez Peralta approached the format as a structural problem, painter Luisa Mesa, a Miami-based artist known for her intuitive abstract compositions, encountered it differently.

“I’ve worked in circles for years. I love them,” Mesa said. “So for me, nothing really changed. It was a natural space to work in.”

Her process begins not with an image but with color.

“I start with the background. I build the surface first,” she said. “Then I draw into it.”

From there, the work develops organically.

Luisa Mesa at work in her studio, where her compositions develop through an intuitive process guided by color and form. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“I work very intuitively,” she said. “I always say the piece knows what it wants. If I don’t interfere too much, it guides me.”

Mesa’s compositions often evoke biological or cosmic systems, forms that suggest cells, constellations or microscopic activity, though she resists assigning fixed meaning.

“I never decide in advance what I want to communicate,” she said. “People bring their own interpretation.”

Over time, she has observed how viewers project their own experiences onto the work.

“People with a scientific background often see something under a microscope,” she said. “Others see something cosmic or even playful.”

That openness is intentional.

“A work of art is a mirror,” she said. “Each person sees something different in it.”

The absence of a prescribed theme across the exhibition reinforces that multiplicity.

“I’m a strong believer in freedom of expression,” Rodez said. “This show is about what’s in the soul of the artists.”

By allowing participants to work without conceptual restriction, he aimed to foreground the breadth of Cuban artistic production, from the figurative to the abstract, from the intimate to the monumental.

“The objective is to challenge preconceived notions of what Cuban art is,” he said. “It cannot be easily categorized.”

That diversity becomes especially visible within the shared constraint of the circle, where each artist negotiates the same boundary in distinct ways.

The exhibition includes work by more than 80 artists across generations, among them Ramón Alejandro, Alejandro Arrechea, Pablo Cano, Ana Albertina Delgado, Ivonne Ferrer, Baruj Salinas and Violeta Roque de Arana, among many others.

Installed within the Westchester Regional Library, a Brutalist structure defined by raw concrete and geometric weight, the exhibition also shifts the context in which the work is encountered.

Part of “Circular Reflections,” this work by Luisa Mesa unfolds through layered surfaces and organic forms that invite open interpretation shaped by the viewer’s own perspective. (Photo by Miguel Rodez)

“I wanted to bring art to people where they don’t necessarily expect it,” Rodez said.

Rather than a traditional museum setting, the library offers a more open environment, where viewers may come across the work outside the conventions of gallery behavior.

The exhibition is accompanied by a series of short texts written by Rodez in response to each piece, reflections that range from brief lines to more narrative passages.

“The idea is not to impose meaning,” he said. “It’s to get the viewer thinking, to start a dialogue.”

Ultimately, “Circular Reflections” does not attempt to define Cuban art through a single lens. Instead, it presents a field of individual practices shaped by different histories, geographies and sensibilities.

For Gómez Peralta, that openness reflects the way art itself functions.

“If you are honest in what you do,” he said, “there will always be someone who connects with it.”

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com