The first art fairs to open in Greater Miami this year were Untitled Art Miami Beach and NADA Miami. Untitled Art returned to its massive tent on the beach with 171 exhibitors offering work by emerging and established artists, with a special curatorial focus on “East Meets West.” In comparison, NADA returned to the legendary Ice Palace Studios with nearly 150 exhibitors from 37 countries and 66 cities presenting new voices in contemporary art.
After surveying hundreds of artworks in various media, Galerie has selected eight buzzworthy artists who should be on every alert art collector’s acquisition list.
Scott Reeder, The Drinkers, (2024). Photo: Courtesy Saenger Galería, Mexico City
1. Scott Reeder at Saenger Galería, Untitled Art Miami Beach
Widely known for his lively paintings and ceramic sculptures of everyday objects in humorous situations, Scott Reeder makes deadpan interpretations of modernist masters, ranging from celebrated Cubists and Surrealists to Pop, Minimal, and Conceptual artists. Dubbed the Midwestern Magritte, the Michigan-born artist’s Image paintings perfectly match Miami Beach. Capturing comical scenes of bread and butter sailing in the ocean and lounging by a bayside pool, a carrot directing a movie with a tomato as the actor, and an ice cream cone and ice cream bar having a beer at a seafarer’s bar, his artworks smartly parody the South Beach atmosphere annual art fair visitors have grown to love.
Emilio Perez, Between Days, (2024). Photo: Courtesy Bienvenu Steinberg & C, New York
2. Emilio Perez at Bienvenu Steinberg & C, Untitled Art Miami Beach
Celebrated for his swirling abstractions made by layering colorful enamels on wood and then cutting away brushstroke-like marks with an X-Acto knife, Emilio Perez exhibited his work internationally for more than a decade. He even created a massive public mural for the Havana Biennial in 2015. Still, when the COVID-19 pandemic kept him in the studio without immediate projects, he began experimenting with a new way of working that was quite old. Painting more traditionally with oil on linen, he made imaginary landscapes of lush jungle scenes devoid of people. Evocative of Cuba when his parents left in 1961 and the fertile terrain of his teenage years in Rio de Janeiro and Miami, the paintings soon became more like mountainous paradises, like Western versions of Shangri-la. Fresh off a solo show at the gallery in New York, the Brooklyn-based artist created new work for the fair, with Between Days providing a visual getaway no matter where you are.
Thorsten Brinkmann, Pony Tale, (2019). Photo: Courtesy Pablo’s Birthday, New York
3. Thorsten Brinkmann at Pablo’s Birthday, Untitled Art Miami Beach
A German sculptor, photographer, and installation artist, Thorsten Brinkmann turned an abandoned Pittsburgh house into a complete work of art in 2013. A student of the photo-based artist Bernhard Blume and sculptor Franz Erhard Walther at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 2004, the influence of both teachers can be seen in his installations, photographs, videos, and the transformed house. Known as Le Hutte Royal, the three-story home now houses a permanent installation collaged and assembled from record albums, furniture, trophies, and other found and discarded materials. Brinkmann employed the same form of bricolage when staging the photographs on view at the fair, including Pony Tale, which playfully—and quite literally—uses found objects to construct a new visual tale.
Sophie-Yen Bretez, Those who depart leave drops behind, Some are clear, some are unkind. We shed them, let them dry in the breeze, And at times, they turn into seeds with the promise of shimmering trees, (2024). Photo: Courtesy Johansson Projects, Oakland
4. Sophie-Yen Bretez at Johansson Projects, Untitled Art Miami Beach
Born in Vietnam and adopted by French parents at a young age, Sophie-Yen Bretez began creating art as a child but paused to pursue a traditional academic path. After earning her Master’s in Entrepreneurship, she resumed painting and drawing as a hobby. It quickly evolved into her calling through luck, opportunity, and hard work. A self-taught artist, she participated in her first group show in 2022, held her first solo exhibition in 2023, and took part in her first art fair in 2024. Once the art world encountered Bretez’s surrealist compositions and her personal narrative on femininity, her work thrived. Initially, she based her paintings on colored pencil sketches but later transitioned to digital drawings, which she applies to canvas before using paint. Utilizing a vibrant palette of pinks and blues, she creates lively compositions that adhere to the poetics of space. While her titles may appear lengthy, they derive from her poems, adding emotional and philosophical depth to her captivating works.
Ginny Casey, Drink, (2024). Photo: Daniel Terna; Courtesy the artist and Megan Mulrooney Gallery, Los Angeles
5. Ginny Casey at Megan Mulrooney Gallery, NADA Miami
Ginny Casey, a painter of surreal worlds that juxtapose household objects, animals, plants, insects, and body parts in strange settings, earned an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008, but interest in her work and shows of it began years earlier. Beginning with drawings of items such as axes, limbs, books, knives, tables, and chairs, the New Jersey-based artist reimagines these objects in new combinations, fostering conversations and narratives among the elements and painting her compositions on canvas within dreamlike domestic spaces reminiscent of Disney films. Her painting Drink depicts a seedpod with a stem that transforms into an arm and a hand holding a watering can to nurture itself. Composed of thinly applied layers of paint, it resembles an ancient fresco, yet it features a subject more relevant to today’s troubled times.
Jane Corrigan, Classroom, (2024). Photo: Courtesy Sea View, Los Angeles
6. Jane Corrigan at Sea View, NADA Miami
A Canadian-born, New York-based artist, Jane Corrigan creates narrative paintings that depict adolescent girls in domestic and natural scenes. With expressive brushwork, her gestural canvases capture Nancy Drew-like scenarios where a variety of actions, mysteries, or mundane situations are unfolding. Drawing inspiration from horror films, personal memories, and the works of Honoré Daumier and Francisco Goya, her distinctive paintings delve into the evolution of her characters on a journey toward independence. In her painting Classroom, a young woman falls asleep at her desk. Privy to her dream, we see two figures engaged in playful interaction while another character observes with her hands on her hips in a disapproving manner. Unaware of being watched, observing her subject places the spectator in a unique role, one that allows us to share or recall the fears and anxieties of youth.
Justin Cloud, Clytie, (2024). Photo: Courtesy Jack Barrett, New York
7. Justin Cloud at Jack Barrett, NADA Miami
A Brooklyn-based sculptor who worked as a Ford mechanic before attending art school and for a commercial display company after college, Justin Cloud creates enchanting metal sculptures of flora and fauna. Growing up in a family of farmers, mechanics, and engineers, he became interested in plants during the COVID-19 pandemic when he grew vegetables and plants to give away. His 2023 exhibition, “The Garden,” at Montclair State University showcased 3D machine-like sculptures of crafted plants and animals, while his recent show at Jack Barrett flattened the plants into sculptural reliefs. For his Clytie piece, Cloud utilized the metalworking techniques of repoussé and chasing—hammering from the back (repoussé) to raise the design in relief and then further detailing the piece on the front by pushing the metal back (chasing)—before enhancing the details with solvent dyes. Named after a Greek water nymph who was buried alive and transformed into a flower, the dazzling work has a space-age appearance while conveying an ancient myth.
Erin O’Keefe, Wingman, (2024). Photo: Courtesy Seventeen, London
8. Erin O’Keefe at Seventeen, NADA Miami
Erin O’Keefe initially studied fine art before moving on to architecture; her work is now informed by both disciplines. Concerned with the nature of spatial perception, the New York and Canada-based artist is interested in the layer of distortion and misunderstanding created by the camera as it converts three-dimensional forms and space into a two-dimensional image. Cutting and painting blocks of wood, O’Keefe arranges them against colorful backdrops and then photographs the composition. She is fascinated by the language of painting, yet she has little interest in painting herself. She enjoys combining two things to understand how they might relate to each other rather than inventing that relationship as a painter. Without understanding what we are observing, her Wingman photograph can be viewed as a still life, even as it challenges the conventions of what a still life is meant to function as.
Cover: Untiled Art Miami Beach 2024.
Photo: World Red Eye