Current Artists in Residence

Andres Cabrera-Garcia is a Cuban-born artist who has lived and worked in Cuba, Spain, and the United States. Cabrera-Garcia’s work explores identity, place, and belonging as it relates to the genre of landscape, the process of oil painting, and the materiality of the painting medium. Landscapes in their native beauty, the many ways they ebb and flow from natural to urban, and how they are altered to become something other than a particular region’s historical or cultural legacy are recurrent themes in his work. Exhibitions with this theme include “Circumscribed Landscapes” at Deering Estate in 2023 and “Krome Avenue: Paintings by Andres Cabrera” at Coral Gables Museum in 2019. He won 3rd place in the 8th Paint-me Miami competition in 2019. Cabrera-Garcia has been a studio Artist-in-Residence at Deering Estate since 2023.

Barron Sherer is a time-based media artist with a background in moving image archival practices focusing on altering and repurposing archived films and videos in cinematic, para-cinematic, and gallery installation contexts. Artistic processes in social media and digital platforms help Barron create source material and documentation for temporary and experiential installations. His films and videos have been screened locally, nationally, and internationally. His practice has led to awards, commissions, fellowships, and residencies including a 2020 Oolite Arts Ellies Creators Award, and in 2017, a South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship.

Enma Saiz is a LatinX, multi-disciplinary visual artist working in sculpture and installation.  The highlights of her career include her solo exhibition, Deering Tiles, at the Deering Estate in 2024, having been selected by Oolite Arts to join other artists from Miami at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in 2022.  She graduated with an MFA in studio art from SAIC in 2020.  Through her practice, Enma explores her concerns/“inquietudes” about social justice, health, and environmental issues.

Gretchen Scharnagl grew up in South Florida, beginning her archiving of nature and environmental practice in her mid-forties. She graduated with an MFA from Florida International University, where she still teaches classes in the Architecture Department, Art and Art History Department, and Honors College. “I use refuse and residue from my past bouts of consuming and upcycle the discards of others and found natural material. My art archives nature, suburban back yards, ecosystems, South Florida including Deering Estate, and our home – Earth. Experiential and research based, my practice includes reading Green Ideas by Penguin, Kinship from The Center for Humans and Nature, and Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. I consult scientists, whose guidance supports the scientific literacy of my art. Currently playing with palimpsest-based collage, concrete poetry, scribbling, tracing, installation, and mark-making. The understanding that the environment is inseparable from human equity, I now shift toward social/environmental issues within my practice. I use the language of the humanities, poetry, poetic thought, or visual poetry. I measure success in the dialogue my work inspires. A scientist visiting my studio said, ‘You have me looking at things I’ve never looked at.’”

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Gustavo Matamoros is a sound artist and composer who has lived and worked in Miami since 1979. His compositions have earned two Venezuelan music awards and have been performed by prestigious ensembles in his home country. His sound art installations have been commissioned and exhibited throughout the U.S. and Europe by notable institutions, including the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami-Dade Art in Public Places, Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Polk Museum of Art, and the Deering Estate. Matamoros has performed at prominent venues such as the Dali Museum, the Lloyd Foundation, and the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery in West Florida, as well as Roulette and Experimental Intermedia in New York City, the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago, and LAXart and Mills College in California. Currently, he is in his third year as a resident artist at both Florida International University’s i360 XR Cylindrical Screen Theater and the Blackbox Theater at the Deering Estate. Since 1988, Gustavo Matamoros has served as the artistic director of the Subtropics Organization.

Jeanne Jaffe is a multidisciplinary artist who recently moved to Florida and works in sculpture, stop-motion animation, video, and drawing. She is Professor Emeritus at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and has been a visiting artist at Xian Academy of Fine Arts in China. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for the installation “Elegy for Tesla,” a Gottlieb Foundation grant for sculptural excellence, PA Council on the Arts grant, among many others. Her work is inspired by an interest in language, literature, history, and psychology as it explores how identity is shaped from early childhood onward by the influences of stories, histories, cultural narratives, and the value systems embedded in them.

Marlon Johnson is a twelve-time Emmy Award-winning producer and director from Miami. He holds bachelor’s degrees in Anthropology and Communications, with a focus on Motion Pictures, from the University of Miami. Marlon has produced acclaimed documentary films on music, social, and cultural issues. In 2010, he joined The John and James L. Knight Foundation, co-directing the award-winning short Sunday’s Best, about African American women’s head adornments in church. In 2014, he co-produced and directed Deep City: The Birth of the Miami Sound, which premiered at SXSW. Marlon’s 2020 documentary, River City Drumbeat, a New York Times Critic’s Pick, explores a Louisville drumline leader’s effort to mentor at-risk youth through arts. In 2022, PBS commissioned him to direct Weight of the State, a short film about Kentucky’s prison system. Marlon is currently the Charles Deering McCormick Fellow and produces Retrofit, a multidisciplinary show at The Estate’s Theater.

Meg Wallace, a native of South Florida, is a multidisciplinary artist. Known for immersive, sensory-rich installations, Wallace inspires audiences to rethink their relationship with nature and ecological stewardship, fostering dialogue and action to deepen an understanding of the natural world. Her participation in recent exhibitions, Interlocking Dimensions at The Deering Estate (2024) and (Hu)mangrove at The Kampong (2024) addressed urgent ecological issues through innovative perspectives. In her solo exhibition Mother Mangrove (2020) at the Stone House Museum, she highlighted the critical role of mangrove ecosystems in environmental balance.

Michelle Grant-Murray is a choreographer, educator, author, scholar, performer and Artistic Director of Olujimi Dance Theatre. She earned a BS degree in Dance Education (Jacksonville University), MA degree in African Studies (Florida International University), and MFA degree in Choreography (Jacksonville University). Michelle has presented work throughout Europe, Asia, South America, the United States and the Caribbean. She is Associate Professor Sr.  and Coordinator of Dance at Miami Dade College, Artistic Director of Jubilation Dance Ensemble. She is the founder and host of The Black Artist Talk, Founder and Executive Director of the Artistry In Rhythm (A.I.R.) Dance Conference, Co-Founder of Florida Black Dance Artists Organization and author of Beyond the Surface: An Inclusive American Dance History. She is a Knights Arts Champion and serves as an Artist in Resident at Deering Estates as a Programming Partner as well as a multi-recipient of the Miami Individual Artists Award. Currently, Michelle is researching the performative intersections of Eco-feminism, Ecology, and Sustainability of the Black Female Body.

Susana Behar is a Miami-based singer with a distinct Jewish, Cuban, and Venezuelan heritage. Her main interest is in the diversity of traditional music and its dynamic character, focusing on its relation to history, culture, storytelling, and inclusion. In 2015, Susana received the Individual Artist Fellowship Award in the Folk and Traditional Arts from the Florida Department of State – Division of Cultural Affairs. In 2020, she was an Artist-in-Residence at History Miami Museum and has been a resident at Deering Estate since 2023. She has recorded three albums and performed in projects, festivals, and concerts across North and South America, Israel, and Japan, collaborating with musicians from diverse backgrounds and musical traditions.

Dona Altemus is a Miami native and interdisciplinary artist who utilizes sculpture, photography, and spatial interventions as a means to explore ecological, cultural, and historical narratives embedded in public space. Altemus has participated in the Keyholder residency at IS Projects in 2021. She was awarded the Miami Individual Artists Stipend from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs in 2022 and the Delaware Public Humanities Institute Fellowship from the University of Delaware in 2017, where she earned her MFA. She has been included in group exhibitions, including “Draw: Point to Point” at the Frost Museum of Art in 2023 and the AIM Biennial in 2020.

Tony Fernandez, a photographer and educator, was influenced by two excellent photography teachers. First, as a student of Jerry N. Uelsmann while completing his BA at the University of Florida, and later, with Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design in Chicago, where he completed his MFA. Subsequently, his interest in teaching took him to East Lansing, Michigan, where he completed his Ph.D. in Education at Michigan State University. His career as an educator has spanned four decades, during which he has taught at the elementary, secondary, and college levels. His photographs have been exhibited at numerous institutions and galleries (Elon College, International Fine Arts College, St. Thomas University, Miami Public Library, Florida International University, North Miami Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Art Institute, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Deering Estate) and are in the collections of the George Eastman House and The Cleveland Museum of Art. He began the photography program at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, where he is still an adjunct instructor of photography and cinematography. Currently, he is an artist-in-residence at the Deering Estate in Miami, Florida. Born in Cuba and raised in Miami, he served two years

Jorge Gonzalez Graupera is an Emmy® Award winning filmmaker and photographer. He has collaborated extensively with non-profits, museums, and institutions of higher learning, documenting their impactful initiatives. As a director, Jorge has spearheaded diverse projects, delivering exceptional content for esteemed organizations such as The Deering Estate, FIU, CMXNR, NPR, The Bass Museum, O, Miami, and numerous others. His film “John William Bailly: In Situ at the Deering Estate” was awarded two 2023 Emmy awards for “Long Form Content” and “Best Audio”. He is currently in post-production for a 60 min documentary commissioned by WLRN on novel climate change initiatives in South Florida debuting in Spring 2025.

Anna Goraczko is a Miami-based visual artist who employs cyanotypes to create vibrant images that focus on family history, body positivity, and spiritual connection. Goraczko received a BFA in Art in 2008 and an MFA in Visual Arts in 2020 from Florida International University. She uses found objects, digital photography, and the human body to create photographic blueprints that are ethereal, dreamlike, and nostalgic in nature. Goraczko’s artistic process engages with the natural environment of South Florida where she grew up and explores the potential for abstracted images to make connections across various timelines. Selected solo exhibitions include “Anna Goraczko” (2023) at The Frank in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Selected group exhibitions include “Journeys”: World Cyanotype Day Showcase, Chennai Photo Biennale, Chennai, India (2023) and “Mama, G-Ma, and Nana”, Miami Beach Urban Studios, Miami Beach, FL (2023). Her work is in the permanent collection at Frost Art Museum in Miami, Florida.

Andrea Clement is an emerging Miami-based artist and educator, renowned for her unique photo encaustic artwork that captures the beauty and fragility of Florida’s environment and wildlife. With over 30 years of experience in photography, Andrea has worked on notable projects, including collaborations with the Research Laboratories of the French National Museums in Paris, the French Archaeological Mission in Egypt, and local fine art portraiture and nature photography. In 2014, her work was featured on the Discovery Health Channel. Since 2018, Andrea has focused primarily on photo encaustic art, using the medium to tell the story of Florida’s natural landscape and its ongoing challenges, both past and present. In addition to her artistic practice, she also teaches encaustic painting workshops in Miami.

Carolina Zuniga works in Miami as a designer. She graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor’s of Architecture with a concentration in visual representation. Throughout her studies, she was the recipient of Cornell’s Priscilla and Robert Joy Prize and the AIA Diversity Advancement Scholarship. Most recently, she was awarded the AIA Women in Architecture ARE grant. She currently uses painting, drawing, model-making and photography to analyze ideas of belonging, domesticity, identity and memory in her work.

Born in Miami, Florida, with Bahamian heritage, Charles Humes Jr. is a visual fine artist whose work explores the human condition, particularly the experiences of people of color. His early art championed social issues such as homelessness, urban conditions, and socio-political prejudices. Humes describes his art as a reflection of “beauty, pathos, and the drama of community.” Humes has earned national recognition for his depictions of African-American life, receiving numerous awards, including the State of Florida Individual Artist Grant and a Smithsonian Southern Arts Federation Fellowship. He studied Fine Arts, Printmaking, and Arts Education at Florida State University, Florida International University, and Miami-Dade College. His work has been exhibited widely in galleries and universities, and he is celebrated for creating site-specific mosaic murals across Florida, showcasing his mastery in glass, shell, and ceramic mosaics. A member of prominent arts organizations, Humes has been a respected voice in the South Florida arts community.

Francess Archer Dunbar is a writer, poet, and amateur fortune teller. Her work is place-based, and often draws on her hometown’s strange history, as well as collective anxieties about microplastics, algorithms, rising tides, and other forces of everyday invasion. She teaches and archives student poetry with O, Miami’s Sunroom program in public schools, and previously worked with the Miami Book Fair and served on the screening committee for the 41st Miami Film Festival. She is a 2025 AICA Fellow and is working on a novel about a flooded art fair. 

Giannina Dwin is an accomplished multidisciplinary artist based in South Florida, recognized with prestigious accolades such as the South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists and the Women in the Visual Arts Award. Her research has been supported by grants for projects in Spain and Brazil. Dwin’s work spans installations, sculpture, ceramics, photography, and performance, showcased in solo exhibitions at notable venues like the Cornell Museum, P/81 Gallery, and the Coral Springs Museum of Art, as well as internationally at Fundación Valdés-Salas in Spain and Museo Municipal de Guayaquil in Ecuador. Her group exhibitions include The Hudson River Museum, Real Art Ways, BREF Art and Design, and Spinello Projects. Her public art includes a sculpture for the Broward County Main Library and a mosaic mural for the City of West Palm Beach. She has also created outdoor works for Pineapple Grove in Delray Beach and bronze designs for Office Depot’s Visionary Women Award.

Lissette Schaeffler is a Cuban-born fine art photographer and multimedia artist based in Miami, Florida. Her work focuses on exploring the connections between memory, time, and place. She received her MFA in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2004. Lisse%e has exhibited nationally and internationally in solo and collective shows for over 20 years. Most recently, she exhibited a selection of ¡Porque el Conejo me Arañó! in a six-woman show at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington D.C (2024). In 2023, she had a collaborative, solo exhibition at the Deering Estate, where she was an Artist-in-Residence from 2020 to 2021. She has exhibited at DORCAM galleries (2024, 2022), Griffin Museum of Photography (2023), PhotoAlicante (2019), Adrianne Arsht Center (2018), Photo LA (2016), Midwest Center for Photography (2015), Art and Cultural Center of Hollywood (2015 and 2013), Miami-Dade College Museum of Art and Design (2013), Boca Raton Museum of Art (2012), to name a few. Lissette was an Artist-in-Residence at Oolite Arts from 2010-2015. She was a Cintas Foundation Fellowship Finalist in 2013 and a Critical Mass finalist twice (2015 and 2022) for PhotoLucida.

Karen Rifas has exhibited nationally and internationally since the 1980s. She is the recipient of the prestigious Michael Richards Award. Public and private collections: the Museo de Arte de Ponce, PR, The Bass Museum of Art, Fairchild Tropical Gardens, Oolite Arts, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami-Dade Art in Public Places Trust, and the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). Solo exhibitions: The Bass Museum of Art (2018), Emerson Dorsch (2017, 2020, 2022), MDC Museum of Art + Design (2015), De La Cruz Collection (2010), Pinnacle Gallery at Savannah College of Art and Design (2007), Polk Museum of Art (2004), Art Center South Florida (Oolite Arts) (1997), and the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Panama City (1993). Karen Rifas has taught at the New World School of the Arts, the Kendall Campus of Miami Dade College and the University of Miami.

Nicole Pedraza is a contemporary dance artist of ​Nicaraguan/Mexican descent that is fueled by cross disciplinary collaborations ​in music, visual art, and technology. Her current interest lies in meaningful collaborations with diverse artists in Miami that foster community in nontraditional dance spaces and nature.  Through her movement vocabulary, she explores intimacy, parallels to nature and humanity, and shifting power dynamics. She has presented choreographic works and/or danced at the Perez ​Art Museum Miami, SuperBlue, The Kampong National Tropical Botanical Garden, Sweat Records, Floyd Miami, and the ​Deering Estate. Nicole has trained at institutions like Jacob’s Pillow and New World School of the Arts. She has danced ​professionally with Mike Tyus & Co, Syncopate Collective, Zest Collective, Volta Collective, SAXYN Dance Works, Peter London Global Dance Company, Miami DanceMakers and ​more.

Yesica Gispert is a multidisciplinary artist exploring Caribbean identity, mythology, and mysticism, layering personal and collective histories in her work to investigate the boundaries between reality and the unseen. Gispert earned an MFA from NYU Steinhardt in 2012 and a postgraduate degree in Media Art from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in 2020. She is currently a Visiting Associate Professor in Photography at Florida International University. Her work has been exhibited globally, with solo shows at Tunnel Projects Miami (2024), Emerson Dorsch Gallery (2023), Mélange Gallery in Cologne (2021) and Dortmunder Kunstverein in Germany (2015). Selected group exhibitions include the A.I.R. Biennial in Brooklyn, NY (2025) and Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1 (2020). She has received Art in Public Places commissions and awards such as three Miami Individual Artist Grants, an Ellies Creator Award and Coral & Cathers Award.