PAST PROJECT

George Bethea

George Bethea was born in New York City. He has lived and worked in Miami for most of his adult life. He has degrees from Florida International University ( B.F.A.) and The University of Miami (M.F.A.) He is known for his sensuous, colorful and textured abstract paintings. Bethea uses flexible, transparent acrylic mediums which allow him to spray, pour, and pile on the paint. He also adds sand and other textural elements. Bethea's paintings have been exhibited and reviewed in North America and Europe. His work can be found in numerous public and private collections in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean.

www.flickr.com/photos/georgebethea

Lucas Blanco

Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Lucas Blanco earned his Bachelor's degree in Fine Art and German from Western Michigan University. As an exchange student in Berlin, Germany, he studied art history with an emphasis on German Expressionism. He then went on to earn his MFA from the University of Miami in 2005. Since 2011 he has been teaching art as a full-time instructor at Miami-Dade College at the Homestead Campus.

about.me/lucasblanco

Juan Carballo

Born in 1974 to a Colombian mother and Cuban father, Juan Carballo is a Miami native visual artist. His work has been featured nationwide since 2002. Carballo began his formal training in a fine arts magnet program focusing on photography, drawing, painting and drafting. He further developed his skills by enrolling in two-dimensional design, drawing courses and pastel workshops at Miami-Dade College and the University of Miami. In 1997, he became a member of ArtCenter/South Florida where he furthered his art career with his current channel, oil painting. With the help of mentorships by Franklin Einspruch and Ernie Sandidge, Carballo has garnered exhibitions in San Diego, Santa Monica and Miami, where he currently holds a studio in the Mimo District.

Shirley Henderson

Shirley Henderson is a painter, courtroom illustrator, and educator currently living and working in Miami, FL. Henderson has exhibited both her paintings and courtroom drawings widely nationally and internationally and is included in the permanent collections of The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, the Kresge Art Museum in East Lansing, Michigan, the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida, The Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland FL, and the Museum of Art of Fort Lauderdale, in Florida among many other institutions and private collections.

Mary Malm

Mary Malm, born in Norwich, Connecticut, lives and works in Miami. She attended Norwich Free Academy, and graduated with a diploma in Fine Art, after which, she attended Pratt Institute. She completed her education at the University of Miami where she received both her BFA and MFA in Painting, and where she received a full scholarship and teaching assistantship, graduating with honors.

Presently she is a professor in painting and drawing at Miami International University of Art and Design. She has also been an adjunct faculty member at Miami Dade College and the University of Miami. She worked as an exhibition specialist with Barbara Young and Margarita Cano in the Art Services Department of the Miami Dade Public Library System, designing and installing exhibitions for all Dade County Libraries.  She has also worked as a painting conservation technician with Rusty Levenson of Florida Conservation Associates, and as a scenic painter for television and movies; some of her clients were Radio Shack, Univision and Telemundo.

She has had a long and loving relationship with the sea from childhood where she spent her summers on the beaches in Connecticut and Rhode Island. After having lived in the West Indies and Bahamas, where she was a crewmember on the sailing vessels Yankee Clipper and Fantome, she settled in Miami.

She has participated in numerous exhibitions in galleries and art centers both regionally and nationally. Her work is in many public and private collections.

Jordan Massengale

Jordan Massengale is a painter and educator. He earned a BFA from the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Miami. His works have been exhibited extensively in solo and group shows in South Florida galleries, museums, and art fairs, and have also shown in Canada and Spain. Massengale received numerous accolades for teaching and for painting, including Best in Show from the Lowe Art Museum Juried Exhibition in 1994. Currently residing in Italy, upcoming projects include shows in Portland, Oregon and Houston, Texas.

Yolanda Sánchez

Yolanda Sánchez was born in Havana, Cuba and immigrated to the United States in 1960. She obtained a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1979, and has practiced and taught psychology at the graduate level for over 30 years. Prompted by a personal crisis in her mid-thirties, Yolanda decided to give voice to her creativity and returned to school, obtaining a BFA and subsequently, an MFA from Yale University in painting. While at Yale, she studied with the British painter, John Walker, who became a mentor, and with Andrew Forge and David Pease, among others. Yolanda is a Fulbright scholar, completing her fellowship as a painter in Spain after she graduated from Yale. Her Fulbright project focused on four Spanish painters: El Greco, Goya, Miró and the abstract painter, Tàpies.

Currently, Yolanda lives and works in Miami Beach, Florida. She conducts "research" in the natural landscape – largely influenced by color, texture and light - and paints in her studio. Her work is never a direct translation of what she sees, but rather is an expression of a felt experience, a memory of or desire for the experience. The paintings are also informed by a variety of sources: the physical world, literature – and particularly, poetry, dance, calligraphy and Asian art. She works with oils on both paper and canvas.

www.yolandasanchezstudio.com

Claudia Scalise

Claudia Scalise was born in Los Angeles, California. She earned her B.F.A. at Florida International University and her M.F.A. at the University of Miami. For more than a decade her artwork has been featured in numerous solo and group gallery and museum exhibitions. Some of her most recent group shows have been at Melissa Morgan Fine Art, in Palm Desert, California, the galleries of Miami-Dade College and the Hollywood Art and Culture Center. She currently practices in Miami where se has a studio, and teaches at Miami Dade College as a visual arts professor.