Visual Arts
Designer Barbara Hulanicki — The Queen of Biba
Designer BARBARA HULANICKI invented Biba in London during the swinging 1960s. Biba’s fans included The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Elton John, and Brigitte Bardot. In Miami Beach in the 1980s, Hulanicki reimagined several Art Deco hotels and “Woody’s” for the Stone’s Ronnie Woods.
read morePhilippe Dodard: Multi-Disciplined Haitian Artist
Known for his synthesis of traditional Haitian pictorial expressions and contemporary articulations, PHILIPPE DODARD paints the Caribbean in a multiplicity of mediums from canvas to wood, stone, and, iron. His textured, layered public works often incorporate created objects rendering the mural a force of attraction fusing the environment with a serene vitality.
read moreAxelle Liautaud: Curator, Collector, Designer, Promotor of Haitian Art
AXELLE LIAUTAUD is a Haitian art historian and curator. She is also a designer who works with artists and craftsmen to create unique items.
read moreBeatriz Chachamovits: Environmental Artist
BEATRIZ CHACHAMOVITS is an environmental artist and educator from São Paulo, Brazil, living and working in Miami, Florida. Her work renders tangible the decline of the coral reef ecosystems, and the role played by humans in it. Her intention is to share the majestic beauty of at-risk marine ecologies as well as the appalling rate of their destruction.
read moreHeidi Paster Harf + Ezra Axelrod Make “Torah Tropical”
HEIDI PASTER HARF is a photographer from Eastern Long Island, who spent the last 15 years photographing daily life in Cali, Colombia, where she lived for two decades. EZRA AXELROD is creative director of ThisTopia, producing Colombian film projects focused on countercultures, regenerative psychoactive plant economies, and social and environmental justice.. Together they made the film “Torah Tropical.”
read moreAnya Wallace: Artist, Scholar, Curator
ANYA WALLACE is a visual artist, scholar, and community educator. Her artwork and scholarship are shaped by a desire to narrate the lessons and pleasures existent in Black Girlhood. Wallace holds a doctorate in Art Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Penn State University. And studied photographic critical theory and craft at the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is currently the Florence Levy Kay Postdoctoral Fellow in Black Feminist Studies at Brandeis University.
read moreArtist José Bedia
JOSÉ BEDIA (b.1959) was born in La Havana, Cuba. He was a pioneer of the radical transformation of Cuban Art that inaugurated the Exhibition Volumen 1, which Bedia was an integral part of. His passion for the primal Amerindians complemented his anthropological studies on Afro-Transatlantic cultures, studying in depth the faith, believes and religion of the “La Regla Kongo” (in which he was initiated in 1983), the “ Regla de Ocha”, and the Leopard Society of Abakuas, among many others.
read morePhotographer Alessandro Sarno: From Milano to Miami
Introduction to Alessandro Sarno. 1:19 min. Interview: Raymond Elman. Post-Production: Sophia Bolivar. Music: Ana Camacaro Gomez. Recorded via Zoom. 11/30/2022, Miami. ALESSANDRO SARNO is a Milan based artist who began his journey into photography in 2008 in the Bahamas, where he purchased his first camera. While there, he captured images that documented a transformative personal experience as he was introduced to the deeply spiritual and colorful Bahamian cultural traditions. Sarno has published several coffee table books...
read moreJosé Bedia Back Then (1999)
Editor’s Note: This article, “José Bedia Explores Links Between Cuban and African Art,” by award-winning art critic Elisa Turner was originally published in the Miami Herald in February, 1999. It highlights both the inspirations for José Bedia’s vision, and his unique imagery. You can also watch our 2023 video conversation with José Bedia’s in ArtSpeak.
read moreIn Memoriam: Renowned MAD Magazine Cartoonist Al Jaffee (1921-2023)
FROM 2015: Al Jaffee (b. 1921) is an American cartoonist who is still making cartoons for MAD magazine and, at the age of 94, remembers every cartoon and human interaction we discussed (during our video conversation) in great detail. Al is best known for his work at MAD magazine, where his cartoons have appeared in every issue except one, and he is revered for his signature innovation, the MAD Fold-In.
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