Summer Open

Bakehouse Art Complex is pleased to announce the cohort for the fourth edition of its annual Summer Open program. For six weeks, beginning in June 2023, the organization will be providing a group of Miami-based artists with free workspace to support their practices. The artists will be utilizing the Audrey Love Gallery as a communal studio space and will have full access to shared art-making facilities.

For this year’s program, nine Summer Open alumni were invited back to our campus for a special Summer (Re)Open edition. The Summer (Re)Open cohort will feature artists Jose Luis Garcia, Juan Ledesma, Shawna Moulton, Zelmira Rizo-Patrón, Mark Russell, Smita Sen, and Joaquin Stacey-Calle, and Arsimmer McCoy, and Avi Young.

Summer Open was conceived by Bakehouse Art Complex as a way to extend the use of its 2.3-acre campus to more artists. As opportunities for free studio space are exceedingly rare in Miami, this program helps fulfill a significant need for artists in the area. This initiative expands on the organization’s mission to not only address the need for affordable workspace for artists in Miami’s urban core, but also to support the practices of local artists by providing them with critical infrastructure and an opportunity to foster relationships and engage with the organization’s community of artists.

The program is organized by Bakehouse Curatorial + Public Programs Manager Laura Novoa.

About the Artists

Jose Luis Garcia is a photo-based artist living and working in Miami, FL. He received his BFA in Visual Art from New World School of the Arts/University of Florida and his MFA in Studio Art from Florida International University. He has exhibited locally in venues such as the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Coral Gables Museum, O Cinema Wynwood in partnership with ArtCenter/South Florida, Bakehouse Art Complex, Laundromat Art Space and Turn-Based Press. 

Avi Young is a Miami native and Queer artist working in drawing, fiber, collage, photography, ceramic, and painting. Avi uses multi-disciplinary techniques to translate themes at the intersection of gender, race, emotion, sexuality, and ethnicity. In these translations, Avi strives to document the jubilation of the queer experience, present the sublime nature found in the range of intimacy, and inform viewers through representation imagery, in the hopes that it will evoke a sense of empathetic relatability that aligns with the human condition.

Arsimmer McCoy is a Miami Gardens, Florida-based storyteller, collaborative artist, educator, and cultural worker, who has been dedicated to these disciplines for over a decade. Raised in Richmond Heights, Florida, McCoy earned her Bachelor’s degree of Arts and literature at Florida Memorial University. She has performed around the world, alongside artists of multiple disciplines and considers it her obligation to bring back the knowledge and stories to her students in South Florida. McCoy produces work in the form of poetry, short story literature, creative writing, performance, educational workshops, and creative direction.

Mark Russell Jr. is an artist born, raised, and based in Miami, FL. Russell received a BFA with a concentration in Visual Arts from Miami International University of Art & Design (2018). Select group exhibitions include Carrie Meek Senior Center - Liberty City’s Voices of Our Community: Race, Risk, Resilience Art Exhibition (2021), The MLK Parade & Festivities Art Exhibition (2021) in Little Haiti, and Liberty City Creative Exhibition at the Sandrell Rivers Theater (2020).

Joaquin Stacey-Calle is an artist born in Quito, Ecuador and based in Miami, FL. He is scheduled to graduate from Florida International University in 2022 with a BFA and minors in Art History and Marketing. 

Juan Ledesma was raised in Lima, Peru and is based in Miami, FL. Ledesma received his BFA from Florida Atlantic University in 2012. In 2021, he had a solo exhibition, Rhythm of Speech, at Locust Projects, Miami, FL. Select group exhibitions include Instrument at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2018) and Performance for Parafiction at ArtCenter South Florida, Miami, FL (2017), among others. Ledesma received the Oolite Arts’ Ellies Creator Award in 2019 and participated in the Oolite Arts’ Home & Away Residency at Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida (2020) and MFU: Miami, ArtCenter South Florida / BHQFU, Miami, Florida (2017).

Shawna Moulton is a multi-disciplinary artist born in Freeport, Bahamas, raised in Kingston, Jamaica, and currently based in Miami, FL. She received a BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts and continues to grow her art practice. She has several years of experience working in museum education departments such as the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, the Norton Museum of Art, Young At Art Museum, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts Museum.

Zelmira Rizo-Patrón is a Peruvian-American artist based in Miami, Florida, working primarily in drawing, painting and printmaking. She received a BA from Cornell University in comparative literature with concentrations in architecture and printmaking. Complementing her art practice, Zelmira garnered curatorial and writing experience as former curatorial fellow and research assistant at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami and as research assistant at CENTRAL FINE gallery.

Smita Sen is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Miami, FL. Sen has had solo shows at Recess (2021) and the Brooklyn Public Library (2022). Sen’s work has been shown internationally in Dubai, U.A.E, and at venues like Recess (Brooklyn, NY), Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY), Flux Factory (Long Island City, NY), Anthology Film Archives (New York, NY), and the Knockdown Center (Queens, NY). Sen was in-residence at Recess (2021), Mildred’s Lane (2018), and received the Instigator Fellowship from New York University ITP Camp (2018). She has given talks and workshops at Columbia University, Bard College, NYU ITP Camp, and LRLX NY. Sen holds a BA in the Visual Arts from Columbia University (2016).