Nereida Garcia Ferraz: As Close As You Want

Recent paintings, drawings, sculpture, and video works by this Miami artist reveal her intuitive approach to materials and subject. Raw materials such as paper, canvas, cardboard, leaves, digital imagery, archival films, and discarded wood are transformed into new visitations of figures in space. Garcia Ferraz describes her process as “bridging the divide.” Through her works she integrates and connects myriad influences from nature, music, rituals, architecture and history. The urgency to draw and paint comes from her desire to forge new connections, to pull together and sustain a dialogue among all aspects of human experience. Fundamentally, As Close as You Want is about seduction. Each of the works is an expression of the artist’s desire to draw the viewer closer, to become engaged.

Nereida Garcia Ferraz is a Cuban-born artist whose practice encompasses painting, photography, video, sculpture and social art projects. She explores Cuban and Feminist themes, as well as nature, beauty and the physical world. Garcia Ferraz lives in Miami. Her works have been exhibited widely in the US and abroad in such venues as The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Museo del Chopo and Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, FOCI at Illinois State Museum, and Islip Art Museum, NY. She participated in this year’s 12th Havana Biennial, and has exhibited and lectured at the Ludwig Foundation in Havana, Columbus College of Art and Design, Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University in NJ, The Schoolhouse Gallery in Provincetown, MA and Dactyl Foundation, NYC.