MIAMI BEACH (June 1, 2022) — This summer, Oolite Arts will present two new exhibitions: “Lean-To,” Oolite’s annual artist-in-residence exhibition featuring works by 15 Miami-based artists, and “At The Edge,” highlighting six female artists who are working in hard-edge abstraction. Both exhibitions open Wednesday, June 8 at 924 and 928 Lincoln Road with a public reception starting at 7 p.m.

About “Lean-To”

Inspired by the architectural form of a lean-to, a temporary, often improvised shelter, “Lean-To reimagines systems of support, ranging from the spiritual to environmental and economical, as well as preservation and care. Using varying media and personal entry points, many works examine how these structures manifest across time and space. Throughout the exhibit, artists reflect on current events and tangible themes, such as migration and justice.

“’Lean-To’ has a double meaning,” said curator Leilani Lynch, who is the curator at The Bass Museum of Art and conceived the show while visiting the artists in their studios. “It’s a temporary structure, or improvised shelter, and it’s also symbolically leaning toward something in the future. Many of the artists are also thinking about care in some way – whether it’s the rituals they perform for self-care or their care for the community and the environment.”

The group of visual and cinematic art residents participating in the Lean-To exhibit work in a wide range of disciplines. They are: Jen Clay, Yanira Collado, Rose Marie Cromwell, Carolina Cueva, Co-residents Rev. Houston R. Cypress & Jean Sarmiento, Mark Fleuridor, Friday, Felice Grodin, T Eliott Mansa, Reginald O’Neal, Edison Peñafiel, Ema Ri, Greko Sklavounos and Roscoè B. ThickéIII.

Several of the artists have created new or site-specific works for the exhibition. O’Neal will create a space that represents a prison cell where his father was incarcerated. O’Neal will also  display a painting along with a real garden that will be inaccessible and will slowly die during the exhibition, symbolizing his father’s disconnection  from the outside world. Ema Ri is planning a multi-sensory installation using dried flowers that guests can walk through and will activate all five senses. Meanwhile, Collado will transform part of an installation she created at Emerson Dorsch Gallery, reformatting sections of wall into a freestanding sculpture that reflects on history and memory held in materials and architecture.

About “At The Edge”

“At The Edge” is an exhibition of female artists using abstraction to investigate and challenge the boundaries of material, process, and environment. Co-curated by Oolite’s Programming Senior Manager Amanda Bradley and President and CEO Dennis Scholl, the exhibit surveys abstraction as a space that lies at the edge.

“A key component of this show is that abstraction can provide the space to evoke the same deeply-held emotions as more naturalistic works of art,” Bradley said. “These artists are using abstraction to  respond to notions of labor, resistance, and transformation.” 

“At The Edge” features works by Nathalie Alfonso, Georgia Lambrou, Devora Perez, Jennifer Printz, Karen Rifas and Donna Ruff. Their approaches to abstraction are built from interdisciplinary practices that span both two- and three-dimensional space.

"In a way, abstract work also functions like poetry,” said Printz, who participated in Oolite Arts’ 2021 Home + Away travel residency program at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. “There is a condensation of meaning into forms and the visual patterns within a piece of abstract art - it can say so much about experience, time, and human nature with so little."

Both summer exhibits will be on display and open to the public through Sunday, September 11. To attend the opening night reception and meet the artists, RSVP here.  VIP members and press will receive one-hour early access starting at 6 p.m.

CALENDAR NOTICES:

Lean-To

924 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, FL

June 8 – Sept. 11, 2022

Exhibit hours: Daily from noon to 5 p.m.

Opening reception:  7 p.m.- 9 p.m. June 8, 2022

Cost: Free

Information: https://oolitearts.org/exhibition/lean-to/  

At The Edge

928 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, FL

June 8 – Sept. 11, 2022

Exhibit hours: Daily from noon to 5 p.m.

Opening reception: 7 - 9 p.m. June 8, 2022

Cost: Free

Information: https://oolitearts.org/exhibition/at-the-edge/  

About Oolite Arts

Oolite Arts helps Miami-based artists advance their careers and inspires the cultural community to engage with their work. Established in 1984, Oolite Arts is both a community and a resource, providing visual artists with the studio space, exhibition opportunities and financial support they need to experiment, grow, and enrich the city. Through its educational programming, Oolite Arts helps Miamians learn about contemporary art and develop their own artistic skills. 

Exhibitions and programs at Oolite Arts are 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; the Miami Beach Mayor and City Commissioners; the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Jorge M. Perez Family Foundation at the Miami Foundation, the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. For more information, visit oolitearts.org. Follow @oolitearts on social media. 

About the Curators

Leilani Lynch is Curator at The Bass, Miami Beach. She has organized recent solo exhibitions with Naama Tsabar, Mika Rottenberg, Karen Rifas, and Aaron Curry, in addition to co-organizing exhibitions with Abraham Cruzvillegas, Haegue Yang, Pascale Marthine Tayou, and Paola Pivi. Before joining The Bass’ curatorial team in 2015, she was Exhibitions Project Manager at Locust Projects, Miami. Lynch has participated on panels and lectures for STPI – Creative Workshop, Singapore, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, ArtTable, and ICOM, and served on juries for the Association of Art Museum Curators, Oolite Arts, FL, The Hopper Prize, and others. She holds a BA in Art History from University of California, Berkeley, and an MAS in Curating from Zurich University of the Arts.

Amanda Bradley is a Belizean American artist and arts administrator based in Miami, Florida. She received a BFA in Photography from New World School of the Arts. Currently, she is the Programs Manager at Oolite Arts, where she oversees The Ellies, Miami’s Visual Art Awards as well as Oolite’s Exhibitions Program. Her work explores place and landscape as a means to connect and understand identity, belonging, histories, and relationships. Her work has been exhibited in The land remembers the flood at FAR Contemporary Gallery; Work from Home at The Bass Museum of Art; Further than Memory, Intimate Distances at Artmedia Gallery; Notices in a Mutable Terrain at Fundacion Pablo Atchugarry; It will never become quite familiar to you at Oolite Arts, RCS: 76-100 at Swampspace Gallery; The Passing of Time at the Alfred DuPont Building; American fine arts, an allegory for Americas at Art Movement LA, California and Current Projects in Little Haiti, Florida; and In This Moment at PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary; amongst others.

Dennis Scholl is the President and CEO of Oolite Arts, one of Florida’s leading visual artist support organizations, where he is overseeing a significant expansion of programming and the construction of a new campus in the City of Miami, set to open in 2024. While at Oolite Arts, he has created unique programming, including an awards program that has invested $2 million in individual artists and art teachers, a cinematic arts program whose graduates have headlined top film festivals, and an expanded artist residency now with travel programs across the country. A seasoned arts leader, Scholl previously served as Vice President/Arts of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, where he oversaw the foundation's national arts program, with grants to cultural organizations totaling close to $200 million. Personally, Scholl has created a series of initiatives dedicated to building the contemporary art collections of major museums and has served on the boards and executive committees of the Aspen Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and the Pérez Art Museum; among others.