Current Miami Artists in Residency

The Deering Estate is an artist support organization that strives to include, educate, and enrich the lives of local communities, and welcomes local, national, and international visitors and partnerships. Our respected Artist-in-Residence program focuses on multidisciplinary works at the intersection of science and the arts and plays a vital role in the community through audience engagement and sustainable practices in art and conservation.

2024 Artists

Dr. Keshia Abraham  President of Abraham Consulting Agency, Dr. Keshia Abraham earned a BA in English/Women’s Studies from Spelman College and a M.A and PhD in Comparative Literature from Binghamton University. She has served as Dean of Arts and Sciences, tenured associate professor, Director of International Education, and Senior Director of Diversity and Inclusion. Her creative-theoretical writing has been published in journals, books, and museum exhibitions. She is the recipient of the 2022 Peter A. Wollitzer Award, co-author of Black Victorians: Hidden From History with John Woolf and co-editor of The Half Yet to Be Told: Education Abroad at HBCUs.

Dona Altemus  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. 

Susana Behar  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, with focus on its relation to history, culture, storytelling and inclusion. In 2015, Susana received the Individual Artist Fellowship Award in the Folk and Traditional Arts by the Florida Department of State – Division of Cultural Affairs, and in 2020, Susana was Artist in Residence at the History Miami Museum. 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.  

Designer-in-Residence Alfredo Brito  Alfredo Brito of Brito Interiors is a renowned Cuban-American interior designer with more than 34 years of experience, who has been honored with numerous and important awards. Mr. Brito carries on the tradition of creating elegant interiors at his design firm located in Miami, Florida where he focuses on residential and commercial interior design. He also specializes in showroom design for fine furniture’s companies, including the creation of spectacular store windows in great cities such as Buenos Aires, New York, and Madrid. Because the beauty and creativity, his work is frequently solicited for publication by leading national and international magazines.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​  

Andres Cabrera-Garcia  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. 

 

Tony Fernandez  Tony Fernandez is a photographer who studied with Jerry N. Uelsmann at the Univerity of Florida (BA), and with Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design in Chicago (MFA). His interest in teaching took him to East Lansing, Michigan, where he completed the Ph.D. in Education at Michigan State University. His career as an educator spans four decades, having taught at the elementary, secondary, and college level. 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. His photographs are in the George Eastman House and The Cleveland Museum of Art.   

 

Lilian Garcia-Roig  Lilian Garcia-Roig is a Cuba born, Texas raised artist living in Tallahassee, Florida whose works landscape-themed works have always explored the complex proposition of sense of place and belonging which can profoundly influence the construction of personal identity. She is most known for her perceptually based, large-scale, “all-day” cumulative paintings that underscores the complex nature of trying to capture the multidimensional and ever-changing experience of being in that specific location. Major Awards and residencies included a Guggenheim, Joan Mitchell, Blackwell Prize, Florida Individual Artist Fellowship, MAA-NEA in Painting, Art Omi, Millay Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, MacDowell, Skowhegan, and the Ludwig Foundation in Cuba. She has shown in museums across the country and has been in exhibitions such as Relational Undercurrents, The Florida Prize and The Florida Contemporary work and has a major work in PAMM’s permanent collection.  In addition, she is a Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at FSU. 

Jorge Gonzalez-Graupera  Jorge Gonzalez-Graupera is an Emmy® Award winning director, director of photography, and editor. 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, Florida International University, CMXNR, NPR, The Bass Museum, O, Miami, and numerous others. His film “John William Bailly: In Situ at the Deering Estate” has been awarded two 2023 Emmy awards for “Long Form Content” and “Best Audio”. 

 

Anna Goraczko  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. 

Michelle Grant Murray  Michelle Grant-Murray is an author, choreographer, performer, Founder, and Artistic Director of Olujimi Dance Theatre/Dance Collective, The Black Artist Talk, Artistry In Rhythm Dance Conference, and author of Beyond The Surface: An Inclusive American Dance History. She is Co-founder of the Florida Black Dance Artists Organization and a two-time recipient of the Artist in Residency program at the Historic Deering Estate and the MDC Live Arts 2020 LALA Residency. Michelle is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of Dance at Miami Dade College Kendall Campus. 

 

Jeanne Jaffe  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  Marlon Johnson is the Charles Deering Estate McCormick Fellow. Marlon is a multiple-time Emmy award-winning producer and director. He has produced award-winning documentary films exploring music as well as social and cultural issues. 

 

 

 

Pangea Kali Virga  Pangea Kali Virga was born and raised in New York and lives and works in Miami, Florida. Social responsibility is pivotal to her art, as she attempts to communicate urgent, difficult messages in beautiful and fun ways through narrative layered fiber art works, murals, and collages, dramatic experiential art and performance, free and public sustainable art and skills workshops, and other collaborative projects with public and private community and arts institutions. Pangea has dedicated herself to helping transform the art and fashion industry to be a more sustainable and equitable one, creating art and wearables out of upcycled materials using zero waste practices, supporting her belief in the power of clothing as storyteller, cultural marker, and political catalyst. Outside of her core practice, Kali Virga is a sustainability advocate and lecturer, educator and mentor to many members of the public including emerging student artists of all ages. She has found great comfort and liberation through art, fashion, and nature and the work she creates is made in hopes of extending those experiences to the viewer and wearer. 

Gustavo Matamoros  Venezuelan-born artist Gustavo Matamoros, based in Miami since 1979, explores the potential of sound to convey information and depict reality. With a background in music theory and composition, he has been mentored by renowned figures such as Earle Brown, Russell Frehling, and Robert Ashley in experimental music, sound art, and intermedia. Matamoros’s recent solo exhibitions include “Glasshouse Yerevan” in Armenia, “Cylinder” at the i360 XR Theater, and “And Sometimes… The Space is Full of a Previous Space” at Deering Estate in Miami. He has participated in group exhibitions like “TheBluPrnt” at Bridge Red and “Beyond The Sound of Silence” at Lowe Art Museum. His work is included in collections such as the Sackner collection at Perez Art Museum Miami, FIU Sculpture Park, and New American Radio. Matamoros has received commissions and grants from institutions such as Miami-Dade County, Aspen Ideas Festival, and Knight Foundation and holds residencies at Deering Estate and FIU’s i360 XR Theater. 

 

Enma Saiz  Enma Saiz is a LatinX, multi-disciplinary visual artist working in sculpture and installation. The highlights of her career include having been selected by Oolite Arts to join other artists from Miami at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in February 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. Enma is a grantee for the Green Space, Miami 2023 open call and had her work displayed as part of the DISplace exhibition.   

 

Gretchen Scharnagl  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. An ongoing dialogue with her two scientist daughters is a significant contribution to her practice. Scharnagl has also built her practice around alternative and non-profit venues, allowing her to pursue poetic mark-making, non-traditional media, ephemeral art, and environmental activism through art. In 2024, she begins her second year as an artist in residence at the Deering Estate, liberating her toward unfettered research and exploration of her surroundings. In a blindly binary world of othering, Scharnagl attempts to see and recognize a non-binary world where human and nature are not separate, our kinship with all is celebrated, and biophilia is the norm, bringing this to her creative practice. 

Barron Sherer  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. 

Laurencia Strauss  Laurencia Strauss is a queer non-binary Latinx/anglo artist from Miami who combines socially based art practices with sculpture, video, and landscape experiments. A Danforth Scholar while earning an MFA from WashU in St. Louis, Strauss also holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from RISD and a BFA in Sculpture from California College of the Arts. Strauss has been an Artist in Residence at Oolite Arts, a recipient of a Wavemaker Grant from Locust Projects, and a featured artist at Aspen Ideas. 

 

Meg Wallace  Meg Wallace, a native of South Florida, is a multidisciplinary artist known for her dynamic and emotionally charged works. Her art explores the relationship between social and environmental ecosystems. Influenced by the chaos and beauty of life and her travels around the world, Wallace’s art invites viewers to contemplate the interconnectedness of their own experiences. Over the past decade, Wallace has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the “Mother Mangrove” series at the Deering Estate in 2020 and the Palmetto Bay Government Center Art in Public Places exhibit from 2021-22. In 2023, she was awarded the Professional Development award by the Florida Department of State Division of Arts & Culture and the MIA grant by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor, and the Board of County Commissioners. 

Alexander Zastera  Alexander Zastera was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and works in Miami, Florida. Zastera has a Master’s in Environmental Studies from Florida International University (2023), a BFA in Studio Art, and a BA in art history from Florida State University (2014). They are known for their large-scale hyper-surreal mystical paintings, found object installations, and public performances centered around the environment. Their painting practice starts as conversations, mixers, and current events, which then get memorialized onto canvas centered around connecting people to share the stories of the South Florida communities. They have been a resident artist in the Miami Dade Library system with ProjectArt USA and are currently in residency at the Deering Estate (2024). They have been awarded an Ellie through Oolite Arts (2023) and the Xavier Cortada “Power of Art” award by the city of Palmetto Bay (2023). Their work has been featured at MOCA Nomi (2021), Deep Space Gallery (2018), Superfine! Art Fair: NYC (2018), and & Gallery (2017). 

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