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The Art of Black Miami Podcast Series organized by the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau highlights and introduces the stories of emerging and experienced artists who make Miami an exciting place to live and visit. Meet Miami-based artists as they share their unique experiences and artistic expression influenced by Miami’s cultural landscape, rich heritage, and mosaic neighborhoods.
Episodes
Friday Sep 16, 2022
Friday Sep 16, 2022
"Say Their Names"
by Chire "Vantablack" Regans
Chire “VantaBlack” Regans’ makes art at the intersection of social justice and storytelling. Her work responds to urgent societal concerns and functions as a critical platform to amplify the voices of the communities with whom she engages. Over the past decade, she has focused on community advocacy and depicting social narratives without distortion, in a variety of mediums. The birth of the Black Lives Matter movement triggered a sense of urgency in her practice, motivating her to broaden her work’s social accessibility and creative scale. In South Florida, Regans continues to marry her artistic practice with community-led activism, emphasizing the art of storytelling as a means of engaging with communities with radical empathy and transparency.
Regans was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, and relocated to Miami in the late 1980s. She studied at New World School of the Arts in the mid-90s, and graduated from Florida A&M University in 2005. The artist serves on the Miami Dade County Community Relations Board's Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Committee and was the Fall 2020 Artist-in-Residence with the Community Justice Project Miami. Chire has received critical recognition for her work in advancing social justice and racial equity. In 2020, she received The Ellies Social Justice Award from Oolite Arts and was recognized as the Best Visual Artist by the Miami New Times. In 2021, she was awarded a prize for her leadership and activism from The Miami Foundation’s Racial Equity Fund.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International | Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio Feature: Chire Regans, “Say Their Names,” 2021, courtesy of the artist
Related Links: Chire Regans, Oolite Arts Social Justice Award 2020, Say Their Names—A Public Art Memorial Project
Friday Aug 12, 2022
Friday Aug 12, 2022
"Remnants"
by Loni Johnson
Loni Johnson is a multi-disciplinary visual artist born and raised in Miami. An artist, educator, mother, and activist, she honors the support she received as a young artist by giving back— nurturing her communities and bettering the world with her creativity.
Johnson’s practice focuses on transforming spaces and situations that have been historically inaccessible to black people and their communities. In 2021, at Locust Projects, Miami, Johnson presented Remnants, a healing space for black women designed to reconnect and reactivate ancestral memory. In the same year, Johnson co-founded Miami Melanated Arts, a collective of black artists centered on forging effective and impactful arts eco-systems in South Florida. Miami’s Oolite Arts recognized the importance of Johnson’s activism with The Ellies 2021 Social Justice Award. The artist will introduce Miami and her practice to Norway in a 2022 Heat Exchange residency organized through Bas Fisher Invitational.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International | Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio Feature: Juan L Martos, for Loni Johnson, “Crossroads” performance, 2021, courtesy of Loni Johnson
Related Links: @lonijae305, Locust Projects, Oolite Arts Social Justice Award, Bas Fisher Invitational Heat Exchange
Friday Jul 15, 2022
Friday Jul 15, 2022
Coming Home acrylic and charcoal on canvas
by Jenny Perez
Jenny Perez is a culturally influenced visual artist based in Miami, Florida. With nearly a decade of experience in the art world, Perez creates projects in a range of sizes for a wide audience—from massive interior and exterior murals, to gallery-owned series and prints on mixed media, and at-home private collections around the world. Her artwork “Trinity” placed second in the 2021 Art of Black Miami Cover Competition. Her dynamic multi-media works have drawn widespread attention, leading to commissions for product development and in-store visual design campaigns with international brands such as Armani Exchange, lululemon athletica, Barry’s Bootcamp, and Prada, and features in international publications including DISfunction Magazine, Latina Magazine, and onCuba.
Perez began her career as an apprentice under internationally-recognized Miami-based masters Romero Britto and Erni Vales. The apprenticeships encouraged her to immerse herself in her own disciplined studio practice, and positioned her to become one of the pioneering artists in the rise of Miami’s Wynwood Art District street art movement. Perez will install her first monumental sculpture in Miami in 2022. She is a proud new partner of Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator as an artist in residence. DVCAI selected Perez for a 2022 residency in Suriname.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International | Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Related Links:Jenny Perez, DVCAI Artist in Residence, Espinasse31, She Lives Here
Friday Jun 17, 2022
Friday Jun 17, 2022
Genesis Series Destiny
by Cornelius Tulloch
Cornelius Tulloch is a Miami-based interdisciplinary artist and designer. With work transcending the barriers of photography, fine art, and architecture combines creative mediums to tell powerful stories. Whether it is through photography or painting, cinematic moments and spatial complexity are depicted in his work. Lighting and color become characters in the art.
His work has been shown in fairs and museums, the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC, Pulse Art Fair, Miami Beach, and the MAXXI, Rome, Italy. Tulloch is recognized for creating influential dialogue through the narratives in his work. He was a 2016 Presidential Scholar in the Arts, graduated from Cornell University’s School of Architecture in 2021, and completed a month-long residence in the Everglades as a 2022 AIRIE Fellow (Artists in Residence in Everglades). Raised in Miami and inspired by his Jamaican and African American heritage, he creates immersive work to express how identities exist between and within cultures and spaces.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International | Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio Feature: Cornelius Tulloch, family dinner, 2022, courtesy of the artist
Related Links: Cornelius Tulloch, Artists in Residence in Everglades
@corneliustulloch @tull.yard
Sunday May 15, 2022
Sunday May 15, 2022
Hair Flip
by Michelle Lisa Polissaint
Haitian-American artist Michelle Lisa Polissaint explores the nature of love and belonging through textiles and photographs. Openly identifying with the LGBTQ community, her practice centers on art and activism. She produces socially engaged projects that encourage artists and community members to form collaborative relationships. A resident artist at Bakehouse Art Complex, she is represented by Spinello Projects.
Polissaint received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art with a concentration in Fiber Based Painting and Photography from Florida International University in 2014. Her multi-disciplinary practice relays narratives tied to the human experience. If Home Was Home is an ongoing photography project inspired by her visits with family in Haiti since 2014. Recent solo exhibitions include Finding Home at Spinello Projects and ruining love songs at the Arts & Culture Center of Hollywood. Polissaint received the WaveMaker Grant from Locust Projects (2021) and Ellies Creator Award from Oolite Arts (2018). Currently, she is developing her first film—a story that revolves around a disco worshiping cult.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International
Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio Feature: Michelle Lisa Polissaint, “Comin’ and Goin’,” 2018, courtesy of the artist
Related Links: Michelle Lisa Polissaint, Bakehouse Art Complex, Spinello Projects
Thursday Apr 14, 2022
Thursday Apr 14, 2022
Josephine Baker
by Addonis Parker
Addonis Parker is known for portrait painting, murals and collages. Deeply inspired by artists Charles White and Ernie Barnes, he shares their commitment to address social issues and inspire a sense of pride through representations of Black Americans. He has mentored youth through after-school and community based art programs for decades. A notable 2015 project engaged teenagers in his process of creating a mural for Miami’s OneUnited Bank.
For Miami Art Week 2021, the French Consulate in Miami commissioned Parker to paint a portrait of American-born French entertainer and activist Josephine Baker. He chose that moment for his first foray into digital art, learning how to produce NFTs, non-fungible tokens, to portray the legendary performer. Parker has been involved for years in preserving local art history through the restoration of public art projects across the city. His next project is a public art commission to design and produce a mural for and about the community of Liberty City.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International
Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Related links: Addonis Parker,OneUnited Bank mural,Addonis Parker Restores Purvis Young's "Everyday Life" Mural in Overtown
Wednesday Sep 22, 2021
Wednesday Sep 22, 2021
By Robert McKnight
Artist Robert McKnight is one of Miami’s creative giants. He was born in North Carolina and moved to South Miami with his family in 1953. Excelling at art from a young age, McKnight attended Killian High School. One of his teachers encouraged him to apply for a scholarship to study painting at Syracuse University. Through Syracuse, he had the chance to study sculpture at the Sir John Cass School of Art in London.
In 1971, while McKnight was in England, his brother and other students at the University of Miami launched the Black Arts Workshop to create new opportunities for Miami’s Black community. He has since become a prominent public artist. Across the city, his landmark projects illuminate half a century of Miami’s Black history.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International | Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Related Links: Robert McKnight, Art & Life with Robert McKnight
Monday Aug 16, 2021
Monday Aug 16, 2021
Your Mommas Voice in the Back of Your Head
by Najja Moon
Artist Najja Moon was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina. The daughter of musicians, she played basketball through high school and college. Moon studied art at Pfeiffer University, just outside Charlotte, before moving to Miami in 2009. In 2015, she co-founded the BLCK family, a creative collective that brought locals together around culinary, visual, performing and social arts. She has lived and worked in different neighborhoods around Miami, as her practice has evolved from drawing, to sculpture, to public art. Engaging Miami’s diverse communities, Moon brings together art, life, and social practice in her inspiring hands-on approach to creativity.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International | Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Related Links: Najja Moon, Bass Museum of Art New Monuments, Knight Foundation New Works 2020
Thursday Jul 15, 2021
Thursday Jul 15, 2021
Erasure in the Making
by Devora Perez
A first-generation American, Devora Perez is daughter to Nicaraguan immigrants. She was born in Miami, and now lives in Hialeah, Florida. Perez earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from New World School of the Arts in 2016, and her Master of Fine Arts from Florida International University in 2020. She shows her art at venues across Miami and the U.S. Domestic environments, urban architecture and the South Florida landscape inspire her work. Perez makes poetic statements about the human condition with everyday materials. Grounded in real life, her abstract art is accessible to all of us.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International | Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Related Links: Devora Perez, Inter | Sectionality: Diaspora Art from the Creole City, Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator
Thursday Jun 10, 2021
Thursday Jun 10, 2021
by Marvin Weeks
Artist Marvin Weeks came to Miami as a young man, carrying in his mind the traditions and environment of his coastal Georgia birthplace. Our diaspora city widened his experience of Caribbean culture. In 1980, Weeks was inspired to become an arts advocate. Through his writing, painted murals, and community activism, the artist has been involved in strengthening the diversity of art and culture in Miami for more than two decades. Weeks considers his leadership role in the Miami Arts & Entertainment Council an opportunity to heighten the visibility of our heritage neighborhoods on the global stage.
Host: Rosie Gordon-Wallace
Producer: Fresh Art International
Sound Design/Editing: Anamnesis Audio
Related Links: Marvin Weeks, Miami Arts & Entertainment Council, Liberty City Broadway Arts District, African Heritage Cultural Arts Center