By Amy Boone-McCreesh
At Ice Palace Studios once again, NADA art fair is underway, this year featuring 150 galleries. You can view the fair through December9, 2023. NADA is located at 1400 North Miami Avenue in Miami.
I asked a few of the artists on display this year to talk more about their work, creative processes, and surviving Miami Art Week!
WHERE CAN VISITORS SEE YOUR WORK THIS YEAR?
You can view my recent works at Goldfinch Gallery in Chicago. Our booth (A106) was specifically chosen for the TD Bank Curated Spotlight by Jenée-Daria Strand, Assistant Curator at Public Art Fund.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE PIECES ON VIEW
These artworks symbolize the fragments of my memories associated with various places, transforming into pixelated images. By making these pieces into needlepoint, I delve into the interplay of colors, reflecting on how our perspectives are intricately shaped by the contexts in which we exist.
WHAT IS INSPIRING YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE RIGHT NOW?
Capturing landscape views, along with changes in light, forms, and colors, motivates me to transform the photographs I take into needlepoint paintings.
ARE YOU IN MIAMI FOR ART WEEK?
Regrettably, I couldn’t make it to Miami this week. Fortunately, I’ve been keeping up with the events through social media and online platforms, allowing me to catch glimpses of some remarkable works by talented artists.
IF SO, WHAT ARE YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS OR TIPS FOR THIS WEEK?
Despite not being physically present, I’ve had the opportunity to see numerous outstanding works through stories shared by friends and the galleries I follow on Instagram. Notably, at NADA, I encountered Mie Kongo’s works at booth C305 and Amir Fallah’s at booth B208. At UNTITLED, Drea Cofield is at booth A63, while at Art Basel, Erica Deeman is at booth D12.
WHERE CAN VISITORS SEE YOUR WORK THIS YEAR? WHAT GALLERY ARE YOU SHOWING WITH?
I’m really fortunate to be showing with Workplace, a London-based gallery. They’re booth E103 at NADA! Workplace has an incredible roster of painters, including Rachel Lancaster and Sooim Jeong, who are both showing in the booth with me.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE PIECES ON VIEW (titles, materials, content)
I have three pieces on view, Crash (Head of a Youth), Crash (An Ant and a Peach, After Jan Van Huysum), and Crash (Dripping Faucet). They’re all oil and latex house paint on panel. These works are part of a recent body of work centering around car crashes— some are head-on collisions, some are closer details of dents and side swipes, which can look more abstract. They’re all juxtaposed with other images appropriated from stock photos, art history, or advertisements.
WHAT IS DRIVING YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE RIGHT NOW?
I’m interested in using the car crash as a metaphor for other kinds of destruction that happen around us but have less drama than the shattering of glass and crunching of metal. A lot of my works use closely-cropped details of art historical images to think about the enormous wealth and power behind so many of those images, and how it has contributed to systems of exploitation and corruption around the world. Other images reflect the slower disintegration of the environment, or the spread of conspiracy theories like chemtrails.
ARE YOU IN MIAMI FOR ART WEEK?
I’m not in Miami, I’m at home in Philadelphia—enjoy the sunshine for me!!
IF SO, WHAT ARE YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS OR TIPS FOR THIS WEEK
From my past experiences in Miami, I think as an artist the best thing you can do is go find a dive bar like Churchill’s and go hang out with other artists there. So much of the fairs are about gallerists, collectors, and art advisors, but I always have my most generative creative conversations with other artists, they are willing to really interrogate ideas in ways most people don’t have the stomach for!
WHERE CAN VISITORS SEE YOUR WORK THIS YEAR? WHAT GALLERY ARE YOU SHOWING WITH?
I have work up this year at Nada with Halsey Mckay Gallery from East Hampton and Brooklyn New York. The booth number is C108. I also have a concurrent solo show with Halsey in their brooklyn space, called Backwards Question, up through the end of the year.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE PIECES ON VIEW
The principal piece of mine in the booth is a large, dyed silk painting, called Floral Compilation. I made this piece after almost 2 years working with grids with dye on silk. At that time, I made a few paintings that compiled all of the various patterns that I made up and used in paintings up until that point. In the floral compilation pieces, there are three of them, the florals are large and sort of spinning outwards, and also form sort of figurative shapes as well.
WHAT IS DRIVING YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE RIGHT NOW?
I moved from Brooklyn to a very rural part of coastal Maine almost 3 years ago, so the intensity of the magnificent landscape. Here is a huge drive in my current practice. I am constantly observing these unbelievable color relationships, and the power of the largeness of nature. I am trying to allow this all to seep into my body and come out in my work spontaneously, although I also paint from the landscape directly. I think about pattern and how we are surrounded in it in domestic spaces and how certain color pallets make us feel. The figure is also starting to emerge a little bit in my most recent paintings, and I’m interested in exploring that more, while continually abstracting everything to keep it coming from a very pure, Intuitive and unknowing space.
ARE YOU IN MIAMI FOR ART WEEK?
Nope, I’m here! View from my studio in Maine
ANA WON
WHERE CAN VISITORS SEE YOUR WORK THIS YEAR?
This year I am participating in a fair in Miami for the first time so I am very excited about that. You will be able to see my works at the N.A.D.A fair at the KDR305 stand E110. In January I will be travelling to my first individual exhibition in the US in the new KDR305 space.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE PIECES ON VIEW
My works mix, as in a whirlpool, different materialities, languages and traditions that seek to evoke the unknown. At the fair there are two medium-sized works in which one tries to evoke the night and the other the day. Both works contain a painting that is vibrant and seems to be in motion. The vitality of these abstractions is the key to looking at them, because for me they are not inert objects but rather they are new entities that are charged with mystical energy.
WHAT IS INSPIRING YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE RIGHT NOW?
At these moments I think a lot about others, about friends, family, colleagues, the people from the neighborhood. In short, human interactions and the mystery of the emotions that emanate from them are something that inspires me a lot and gives me a lot of curiosity, also because they seem to me to be key in today’s world.
ARE YOU IN MIAMI FOR ART WEEK?
Now I am in Argentina finishing to prepare my exhibition for January, in Miami at KDR305. I hope to see you there.
WHERE CAN VISITORS SEE YOUR WORK THIS YEAR?
Lefebvre et Fils, Paris, FR – NADA Miami Booth B-100
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE PIECES ON VIEW
This exhibition, ‘Ghost Ride’ pays homage to the enduring legacies and devotion of funerary folk sculpture. Presenting a collection of seventeen ceramic figures that range from intimate to monumental dimensions, I fused manga imagery with ancient motifs from Peruvian and Korean stone carvings to create a colorful, large-scale, and humorous world of characters.
WHAT IS INSPIRING YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE RIGHT NOW?
At the moment, I’m extremely inspired by amusement parks! How my work could function within that realm of excitement and interaction between people is making me think how I can push their installation and documentation ten-fold!
ARE YOU IN MIAMI FOR ART WEEK?
Yes
WHERE CAN VISITORS SEE YOUR WORK THIS YEAR? WHAT GALLERY ARE YOU SHOWING WITH?
I have a solo presentation at NADA this year. I’m showing with Olympia, who are a gallery based in New York. We’re at booth C-214.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE PIECES ON VIEW
I’m showing a selection of new paintings on canvas as well as three ceramic sculptures. The work on view is kind of a cross section of my practice as a whole, which I see as a long form self portraiture project. My practice is diaristic and I use these sort of archetypal mythical characters as avatars for different facets of myself, and to explore difficult personal subject matter from a bit of a distance.
WHAT IS DRIVING YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE RIGHT NOW?
A deep need for a meditative, solitary, self exploratory practice.
ARE YOU IN MIAMI FOR ART WEEK?
Yes! It’s my first time here, for the fairs and in Miami in general.
IF SO, WHAT ARE YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS OR TIPS FOR THIS WEEK
Hmm, I don’t have much advice considering I’ve been here for two days and it’s my first time in this city and at the fairs. I guess my best advice is keep snacks in your purse so you don’t have to pay $75 for a weird sandwich when you’re hangry at a fair. I have these little individual trail mix packets from Trader Joe’s and they’ve been coming in clutch every day.
