Current Artists in Residence

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.

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

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.

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 lens-based artist whose work explores life’s impermanence through the interwoven concepts of memory, place, and time. Guided by a search for identity within the natural world, her practice examines the effect that time and proximity have on our perspectives toward nature while connecting our origins with the symbiotic relationship we share with the natural environment. She holds an MFA in photography from SCAD. With over 20 years of experience, Lissette has showcased her work nationally and internationally in both solo and group exhibitions. In 2024, she was invited to participate in a six-woman show at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington D.C. featuring a large selection of her “¡Porque el Conejo me Araño!” series. In 2023, she was part of a collaborative solo exhibition at the Deering Estate where she was and currently is an Artist-in-Residence. Additionally, Lissette was an Artist in Residence at Oolite Arts from 2010-2015. She is the recipient of an Ellies Creator Award (2025) and has received three MIA Grants (2023, 2024, 2025). Lissette was recognized as a Cintas Foundation Fellowship Finalist in 2013 and 2025 and was a Critical Mass finalist for PhotoLucida in 2015 and 2022.

Emily Peters (EiY) is a sustainable textile, metal, and sound artist who creates with discarded materials using non-toxic and Earth friendly methods, and composes soundscapes that are heavily influenced by nature, non-duality and self inquiry. Her sound practice is an homage to the unfoldment of life, and a translation of sensation into soundscapes. Her formal vocal training started at a tender age, continued intensively through young adulthood, and was reborn later in life through Southeast Asian and Native American chanting, singing and vibrational practices. Subtropical herbalism, permaculture and movement practices also nourish and inform EiY’s work. Emily was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin and has lived and worked in Miami, Florida for nearly twenty years. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Clothing Design with a minor in Fine Art from University of Minnesota – Twin Cities in 2006. Emily is a recipient of the 2025-2026 Miami-Dade Individual Artists Grant and attended the Studio 88 Artist Residency in Doi Saket, Thailand in autumn of 2025. In the coming year, Emily has been selected as a Residency Fellow with Deering Estate (Miami), CollaboARTive (Miami) and La Wayaka (Atacama Desert, Chile). Exhibitions of note include “Future Tense” at MyMA Gallery (global/digital, 2026),

Josh Aronson (b. Toronto, Canada) was raised in Florida and received a BA in Philosophy from Northwestern University. His work has been exhibited at The Bass Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Nizhniy Tagil Museum of Fine Arts, as well as through the City of Miami Beach’s No Vacancy Public Art Commission, where he received both the People’s Choice and Juror’s Prizes in 2024. His photographs have appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, Financial Times, Frieze, Italian Vogue, Teen Vogue, Dazed, i-D, and Apartamento. His first zine, Tropicana, is held in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art Library and the Library of Congress. He lives and works in Miami, where he founded Photo Book Speed Date, a public program devoted to sharing and discussing photography books.

Deryn Cowdy was born in London, she studied sculpture at Bath Academy of Arts. After painting for theaters and photographic studios. She restored painted finishes for the National Trust, where she learned about and grew to love historical materials and techniques, still evident in her work. Since arriving in Miami to work at the Versace Mansion, she has been based in Miami, where she met her husband with whom she has 2 children. She has worked extensively as muralist and photographer in Miami and London. She developed a gilding technique to enhance her photographic images which range from the kitchen counter to large scale vistas of the Everglades. Deryn is currently working on a series of large-scale landscape paintings thinking about the threatened beauty of the Everglades ecosystem.

Natalia Garcia-Lee was born in Madrid, Spain and lives and works in Miami, Florida. She received a B.F.A. in sculpture from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York in 1995. Natalia Garcia-Lee is a multi-disciplinary visual artist working in oil paintings, collages, drawings, and jewelry. Natalia Garcia-Lee’s is a series-based artist, with each series utilizing one or more mediums while relating with each other under the common theme of how humans behave as a species. Garcia-Lee’s solo exhibitions include “Homo Sapien Sapien” October 2025, Miami Dade College, Kendall Campus Gallery, Miami, Florida. “The Measure of Man” April, 2022, LnS Gallery, Miami, Florida and “Monkey Mind” April, 2020, Deering Estate Museum, Miami, Florida. Group exhibitions in Miami, Florida include “Evening of Art” 2026, Lowe Museum. “Cut, Tear, Rupture and Overlay” 2023, Edgezones Art Center. “The BluPrnt Show” 2023, Bridge Red Studios. “In the Company of Women:At Large” 2022, LnS Gallery.

Freddy Jouwayed is a multimedia artist and exhibition designer currently heading FJP Design. He previously served as Museum Designer for HistoryMiami. There, he was instrumental to an immersive multi sensory approach for presenting South Florida historical content evident in exhibitions such as “Hurricane Andrew – 25 Years Later” and the award-winning “Operation Pedro Pan, The Cuban Children’s Exodus”. Jouwayed’s spacial considerations and fascination with light drive an artistic practice that centers on mesmeric settings for collaborative exchanges. These concerns are evident in the installations and performance rituals with the artist collective 3PQ, and more current collaborations with sound artist Gustavo Matamoros produced the sound installation LISTEN, and design of the Audiotheque 2.0, both at Oolite Arts. In 2019, Jouwayed’s multimedia installation works were exhibited at Cornell Art Museum, Palm Beach State College, NSU, and MDC’s Koubek Center.

Debora Rosental is an Argentinian artist based in Miami, Florida. With a background as a Biochemist, Pharmacist, and a Doctorate in Cellular Biology, she brings a researcher’s eye to the traditional crafts of weaving, embroidery, and natural dyeing. She takes an experimental approach to her work. She goes beyond traditional fabric by using innovative biomaterials and dyes made from native Florida plants. Through her art, Rosental explores how humans affect nature and uses her work to advocate for environmental protection and cultural heritage. Rosental is a two-time winner of the Miami Individual Artist (MIA) Grant (2024–2026). Her work has been shown at the Coral Gables Museum, the Handweaving Museum, Florida International University (FIU), the Coral Springs Museum of Art, and the Doral Cultural Arts Center. She is a co-author of the published book: South Florida Color Palette. Natural Dyes and Native Plants.

Rebekah Shoaf is an author, educational consultant, and social entrepreneur. Her first book, Educating with Passion and Purpose: Keep the Fire Going without Burning Out, was co-authored with Meredith Matson and published in 2023 by Jossey-Bass. Her current projects include a memoir-in-progress about three secrets and her newsletter The Cocoon, a community for people trying to do their second act very differently from the first. Rebekah has studied with Dani Shapiro, Abeer Hoque, Héctor Tobar, Ly Tran, Kate Lebo, and Cheryl Strayed and has been awarded scholarships by the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Aspen Summer Words, and the Port Townsend Writers Conference. Her magna cum laude honors thesis in creative nonfiction at Harvard University was a collection of personal essays. A third-generation Miami native, Rebekah is a culinary school graduate, a marathon runner, the owner of a pink Vespa, and the founder of the Bronx-based bookstore-without-walls® Boogie Down Books. Learn more about her at rebekahshoaf.com.

Visual artist Aida Tejada, born in the Dominican Republic, brings an interdisciplinary and materially driven approach to her practice. She holds an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, along with a degree in Psychology and a master’s degree in Communication. Informed by her multicultural background, Tejada’s work explores the poetics of reconstruction through the use of natural and reclaimed materials. Working across multiple media, she engages in processes of mixing, shaping, and mending, treating material as a living archive that carries memory as an evolving presence. Tejada has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions. Her work has received multiple honors, including two First Place awards from the International Society of Experimental Artists. It has been selected for The Florida Biennial 2022 at the Hollywood Art and Culture Center. She has participated in artist residencies at the Deering Estate (2014 and 2026) and the Studios in the Mile (2020). She is also co-author of the 2025 publication South Florida Color Palette: Native Plants and Natural Dyes.