Contemporary Currents Exhibition – Stratum: a Layered Perspective of South Florida
The Deering Estate ‘Contemporary Currents’ series is an annual program that integrates contemporary art with collections and historic houses. Artists are selected from the roster of past and current Artists-in-Residence at the Deering Estate to display their work on the second floor of the Richmond Cottage for a three to six-month period.
Stratum: a Layered Perspective of South Florida exhibits Deering Estate’s 2025-2026 Artist-in-Residence Andrea Clement’s encaustic paintings, which capture the complexities of South Florida’s unique geological and hydrological landscape. Andrea Clement is a longtime practitioner of encaustic art, using heated beeswax, pigments, and damar resin to create vibrant, abstract paintings. Her residency has been spent exploring the earth’s physical structure, its history, and the processes which actuate its evolution. The encaustic paintings examine geological forces through the passage of time with hydrology: the movement, quantity and management of water on earth. Clement draws from observation of Deering Estate’s waterfront view of Biscayne Bay and current restoration projects, such as the Cutler Slough Restoration Project and Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. The paintings involve Clement’s interest in and observation of geology: the physical structure, substances, and processes that act on the earth. She embodies geologic movements through abstract representations of oolite, fossils, erosion, infiltration, evapotranspiration, plate tectonics, geologic time, sedimentation. Through a process of layering, refining and carving pigmented beeswax, Clement creates colorful, heavily textured paintings that vivify the relationship between South Florida’s water and oolite sediments. At the center of the depicted geological processes, as it manifests in Clement’s work, is stratum: to layer. Just as encaustic painting begets the layering beeswax and resin, South Florida is composed of intricate layers which host its history and connect its inhabitants to the passage of time.
Installed in The Garden Room, a historic space in the Richmond Cottage at the Deering Estate, the exhibition will be on view from May 1 to July 20, 2026.
Opening reception: Sunday, May 3, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets for the opening reception are free and can be accessed through Eventbrite.com.
Artist Talk: Sunday, May 24, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets for the artist talk are free and can be accessed through Eventbrite.com.
About the Artist:
Andrea Clement is an Artist in Residence at Deering Estate and a Miami-based artist and educator whose photo encaustic work captures the beauty and fragility of Florida’s environment and wildlife. With over 30 years of experience in photography, her creative path has taken her from ancient ruins in Egypt to the wetlands of South Florida. Andrea earned an Associate’s
Degree in Professional Photography from the Southeastern Center for Photographic Arts in Daytona Beach, followed by a B.A. in Art History from the American University of Paris. While in Paris, she completed a one-year internship photographing artworks and ancient artifacts for the Research Laboratories of the French National Museums at the Louvre. This work later led her to the archaeological site of Tanis, Egypt, where she documented excavation findings as a site photographer. After relocating to Miami in 1996, Andrea continued photographing for galleries, collectors, and auction houses. Her focus shifted to maternity portraiture after a personal commission sparked a new creative direction—eventually earning her work a feature on the Discovery Health Channel. Since 2018, Andrea has dedicated her practice to photo encaustics, blending photography with collage, pigments, and wax to explore the layered stories of Florida’s natural landscape. She regularly hikes and kayaks through Everglades National Park, the Fakahatchee Strand, and Big Cypress to capture the local ecology that inspires her work. In addition to her studio practice, Andrea teaches photo encaustic workshops in Miami.
COST: Included with General Admission, $18 for adults (ages 15+) and $10 for children (ages 4-14). Admission is free for Deering Estate Foundation Members and children under 4 years old. Non-Members can choose their date of visit / purchase General Admission tickets online here (choose your visit date). Members do not need to reserve to view exhibit; please show your membership card at the Ticket Booth on the day of your visit, 10am-4pm. Become a Member today!
Questions? Contact Us or Plan Your Visit
Cultural Arts Programming at the Deering Estate is made possible with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, and The Deering Estate Foundation, Inc.