I wanted to curate a powerful and exhilarating exhibition that celebrates the unyielding spirit of Miami-based artists who fearlessly embrace maximalism as a means of self-expression. Through diverse sculptures, installations, paintings, printmaking, and ceramics, eight talented artists have harnessed the courage to follow their instincts and break free from conventional boundaries, inviting viewers on an immersive journey into their unrestrained visions.
Inspired by the audacious act of embracing mistakes as a pathway to artistic growth, this showcase at MIFA Gallery seeks to amplify the raw emotions and complexities of life, urging audiences to embrace their defiant selfhood in a world where the unapologetic use of texture, color, and feelings reign supreme.
While Juan Henriquez is not looking to derive a rational nor obvious discourse from the formal “fine arts” schools, he creates works full of pure sensibility and intuition. The author depicts a psycho-sensitive duplicity that allows viewers to look without rules simultaneously and perceive carefully. On the other hand, Alina Rodriguez Rojo expresses her frustration against social injustice in an installation that pays tribute to courageous women of the circus as a symbol to bind modern women to the highest form of funambulism, the tightrope. Alina’s faceless, see-through figures with no color, race, or facially recognized features hang on a tightrope, as Isabel Brinck, who delves into the depths of her inner poetic world, encapsulating the enigmatic nature of unconscious thoughts, layering them upon each other in a mesmerizing tapestry.
As we say here: This is so Miami! Dani Maya and Patrick Oleson ensure we recognize our daily life; Maya explores migratory identity and social progress in a diasporic context through his ceramics. Both authors pull from the physical and social urban energy, absorbing the visual information of Miami streets. Very much relatable with Pablo Contrisciani‘s Energy series, where he represents the juxtapositions between chaos and harmony.
I moved to Miami in 2011 and quickly discovered it is a transitional City. The printmaking of Charlisa Montrope references her family’s immigration from St. Lucia to Miami; In her work, she uses many materials and processes reflecting on multiculturalism. And is this diversity that made our home so unique, a place where “every coin has two sides,” a concept well represented by Polen Cerci‘s Burlap Series, where she diluted with ink Robert Frost poems from a 25-year-old vintage book in art pieces that we can appreciate front and back, as a metaphor of a book that can be interpreted differently depending on the reader, as well as abstract art.
