Artists Spotlight: Commissions for Wynwood Works
Working in collaboration with Magellan Housing, LLC, Bakehouse ran a juried competition from among its artists community to select the public art for Wynwood Works, a 120 unit affordable housing development located in our very own neighborhood, just a three-minute drive away.
The prints currently on display are the six shortlisted proposals submitted by artists Alain Castoriano, Philip Lique, Christina Pettersson, Sandra Ramos, Nicole Salcedo, and Gabriela Gamboa and Tonya Vegas. After a rigorous and thoughtful process, Salcedo’s work, Blooming Worlds, was selected and approved by the City of Miami’s Art in Public Places Committee and is now installed on the building’s west facade. The semi-finalists’ works will be on-view in the building lobby and its communal spaces.
Through our partnerships with Magellan Housing, Bakehouse aims to propel and sustain creativity, foster collaboration and community, and elevate Miami and its artists, locally, nationally, and globally.
To learn more about the Bakehouse partnership with Magellan Housing, please access this link.
Works on-view
Alain Castoriano, Wynwood Jungle
Alain Castoriano’s approach for this work was based on his observation of Wynwood and its transformation over time. He wanted his images to respond to the existing architecture and design elements of the neighborhood, which include many of the bright and colorful murals and graffiti that first made it popular.
Through the work, he evokes “the spirit of Miami” by using bright colors and bold figures, reminiscent of Matisse, to represent the tropical flora and marine fauna found in our city. Castoriano used an alternative palette of mostly muted greens, oranges, and browns interspersed with mustard yellows and deep reds to contrast with the predominantly primary colors used in the murals found on many of the facades of buildings in the area.
Castoriano wanted his proposal to reference different visual languages, specifically Tropical Modernism, an architectural style that responded to the unique climatic and cultural conditions of the Global South. He also took inspiration from the Bacardi Building, a prime example of the International Style, closely related to modernism, and a landmark of the city located just a few streets down from Wynwood on Biscayne Boulevard.
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Alain Castoriano (b. 1952, Lima, Peru) graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs in Paris with a specialization in Visual Communication. In 1975, he began his career as an Art Director and Creative Director in the publishing, advertising and media industries in France. He started his career as a painter in 2000, with his first solo exhibition in 2005 in Paris. Castoriano has exhibited his work in both France and the United States. He has been a resident artist at Bakehouse Art Complex since 2006.
Learn more at castoriano-art.com and follow him on Instagram @alain_castoriano.
Christina Pettersson, The Forest Returns
In this work, Christina Pettersson resurrects imagery of the pine rocklands, once the dominant forest of much of South Florida, including Wynwood. By doing so she reconnects this neighborhood to its authentic past, signaling a communal remembrance of our unique environmental heritage that made life at this particular place possible. Pettersson chose to use an artistic style and palette reminiscent of postcards, which frequently depict Florida history, to bring to life this rich ecosystem.
“Florida's early tourism fueled a massive postcard industry, which began by hand tinting black and white photographs with soft blue skies and lush greens, beckoning the viewer to step inside paradise. The pine rocklands were once so ordinary I rarely saw them on a postcard, but now as one of the world's most endangered forests, they represent a rarity far more exotic than any tropical picture. Adopting this format now would be a fitting act of reverence and celebration.”
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Christina Pettersson (b. 1976, Stockholm, Sweden) is a Miami-based visual artist, whose large scale drawings, videos, installations and group performances focus on the hidden histories and environment of Florida. Recent solo exhibitions include Faena Arts (2023), Miami International Airport (2021), Locust Projects (2020), Everglades National Park and Deering Estate (2018). She has attended residencies at Everglades National Park, Oolite Home and Away, Studios of Key West, Penland School of Crafts, Yaddo and Ucross. She is in the collections of the Pérez Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Miami, Bass Museum of Art, Margulies Collection and the Four Seasons Hotel. She has been a resident artist at Bakehouse Art Complex since 2018.
Learn more at christinapettersson.com and follow her on Instagram @christina_pettersson.
Gabriela Gamboa and Tonya Vegas, Nature’s Wonder
This collaborative work is inspired by the cooperative underground economy that exists between trees and their clear communication and interaction with each other. The images take inspiration from the autochthonous trees growing on the very block of the new building, captured from two perspectives: the macro (i.e. the majestic structure of the tree) and the micro (i.e. the intricate veins of a single leaf). Through their work, Gabriela Gamboa and Tonya Vegas seek to weave the delicate threads of nature into the fabric of the daily lives of inhabitants and passersby, by seamlessly integrating the artwork into the surroundings and softening the rigid lines of urban space.
Drawing from the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi, which celebrates imperfections and transience, the images are intended as a moment for reflection and connection with nature. In the artists’ words:
“The bustling urban tapestry of Wynwood has seen many transformations, embracing the continuous influx of newer generations and changing aesthetics, overflowing with color and visual stimulation. Within this process of transformation, our goal is to open a space of harmonious coexistence between urban and natural habitats, reflecting a necessary global shift towards a deeper understanding of our environment.”
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Gabriela Gamboa (b. 1956, Pittsburgh, PA) received her BFA in Art and Design from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Visual Art from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has exhibited artwork both regionally and internationally at renowned institutions including Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Venezuela; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Lima, Peru; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santiago, Chile; and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia, Venezuela. In 2021, she was awarded an Ellies Creator Award by Oolite Arts and in 2024, the Harris Barron Fellowship from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Gamboa has been a resident artist at Bakehouse Art Complex since 2018.
Learn more at gabrielagamboa.com and follow her on Instagram @gabagamboa.
Tonya Vegas (b. 1952, Caracas, Venezuela) is a Miami-based, Venezuelan-born visual artist whose work spans painting, collage, printing, site-specific installations and architectural interventions. She holds a BFA in Psychology from Catholic University Andres Bello, Caracas, completed a Foundation Course at Hornsey College of Art, London UK, and received a Graphic Arts Degree at Center for Graphic Arts, Caracas. She has exhibited works in both group and solo exhibitions in France, United States, and Venezuela. Currently, Vegas is working on a public artwork for the Zelda Glazer Soundscape Park commissioned by Miami Dade County’s Art in Public Places. She has been a resident artist at Bakehouse Art Complex since 2017.
Learn more at tonyavegasofficial.com and follow her on Instagram @tonyavegasofficial.
Nicole Salcedo, Blooming Worlds
Blooming Worlds, which occupies the building’s west facade, comprises four panels portraying vibrant and dynamic figures set against a backdrop of stylized plants. These colorful figures are central to the work, leaping and reaching for new heights, symbolizing the movement upwards of a diverse and dynamic community. The design also integrates a lush and vibrant plant pattern throughout, signifying growth, renewal, and the flourishing working-class community that will once again have the opportunity to live and participate in the neighborhood through the Wynwood Works project.
To create an engaging and visually appealing facade that stands out against the building's backdrop, Nicole Salcedo employed a color palette that merges warm and cool tones, a combination of colors that is symbolic of the coexistence of Wynwood's past and present. In the artist’s words:
“This artwork will stand as a testament to the enduring spirit of Wynwood's residents and its vibrant, ever-evolving community, serving as an inspiring reminder of the neighborhood's history and its promising future. Blooming Worlds will be a visual manifestation of the resilience that defines the soul of Wynwood.”
Nicole Salcedo (b. 1988, Miami, Florida) is a Cuban-American multi-disciplinary artist based in Miami, Florida. Salcedo earned her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She works in sculpture, fibers, performance and film, with a foundational practice in drawing and pattern design. Using repetitive marks to create patterns and webs of energy within her work, Salcedo’s drawings open up pathways that offer a deeper understanding of consciousness and the various connections between our bodies and the environment. Recent projects include Buried Luminaries, a meditative performance with BFI Miami in 2023, Palm Breeze, Seagrape Welcome, a public art commission for Miami-Dade County, and In between Dreamscapes, a solo exhibition for the Oolite Arts Walgreens Windows, both in 2022, Salcedo has been a resident artist at Bakehouse Art Complex since 2018.
Learn more at nicole-salcedo.com and follow her on Instagram @nikkidreaming.
Philip Lique, Matrix South Florida
Combining formal pattern and gestural collage elements, Lique’s work weaves texture and shape into an accessible narrative that reflects on what it means to live in Miami and South Florida in general. The contents of each cell spill through the composition, establishing rhythmic bands of identifiable surfaces and icons. This grand conglomeration references weather, flora, fauna, and the built environment in an arrangement that suggests both intention and happenstance.
These textures are representative of the shared cultural elements of Miami life, such as relaxing by the pool, collecting mangos, catching a glimpse of a gecko, and following the meteorological models of approaching hurricanes. Other imagery identifies the city's relationship with travel, the ways in which we move through the city, and the familiar terrazzo pattern we often find beneath our feet.
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Philip Lique (b. 1983, New Haven, CT) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice focuses on blending craft and generative art-making with public engagement. His practice alternates between sculpture, installation, printmaking, and independent publishing. Currently, Lique is the Senior Manager of Facilities and Operations at Bakehouse Art Complex; previously, he was the Director of Exhibitions at MadArts Studio in Dania Beach, FL. He also collaborates with other organizations, artists, and institutions as a freelancer to produce exhibits, programming, printed matter, and objects. Lique has been a resident artist at the Bakehouse Artist Complex since 2020 and is represented by Emerson Dorsch Gallery.
Learn more at phillique.com and follow him on Instagram @philip_lique.
Sandra Ramos, Miami Color Symphony
The title refers to Italian composer Antonio Lucio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, a violin concerti that gives each season of the year a musical expression. In the work, Ramos includes some of the elements that mark the passage of time in our subtropical city. Each image contains collaged photographs and drawings that represent one of the seasons: the radiant blossoms of the golden trumpet tree symbolizing spring; a rainbow glowing in the brightness of a summer sky; the red-hued palm tree blowing in the mild wind of autumn; and, an airplane flying up towards the cityscape like the flocks of migratory birds arriving in winter.
A black and white engraving of a young girl, a combination of a self-portrait and the character Alice in Wonderland, is present in each of the images and a recurring theme in Ramos’s work. Her presence represents the artist’s relationship with the city, which she moved to ten years ago from Cuba. In the artist’s words:
“I want to poetically highlight my interactions with Miami's colors, atmosphere, architecture, and nature to show how they become vital in the process and the memories of immigrants and people settling in a new and unknown environment.”
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Sandra Ramos (b. 1969, Havana, Cuba), who lives and works in Miami, produces animations, etchings, and multimedia-immersive installations that expose how dysfunctional power interactions produce negative narratives that affect identity, nationality, gender, and race conflicts. Ramos graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana and obtained a Master in Fine Arts from San Francisco Art Institute in 2021. She has had recent solo shows at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami and Pan American Art Projects. Her work has been shown and collected at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Walker Art Center, MoMA, The San Diego Museum of Art, The Bronx Museum, Ludwig Forum Aachen, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, and Fuchū Art Museum. She has been a resident artist at Bakehouse Art Complex since 2016.
Learn more at sandraramosart.com and follow her on Instagram @sandraramosart.
This exhibition is supported by:
Arison Arts Foundation; Crearte; John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at The Miami Foundation; Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council; National Endowment for the Arts; and, Magellan Housing.