Contemporary Artists for Inspiration, Art Center of South Florida

In the middle of the frenzied promenade on Lincoln Road in SoBe Miami lies the Art Center of South Florida that offers classes, studios and residencies for Contemporary Artists. Every first Saturday they have open studios where you can discover emerging and established Contemporary Artists. To learn more about the residency program, which has three application deadlines per year, click here.

There were three very different artists whose work I enjoyed and want to share that can easily be introduced in art lessons and the classroom. These artists-in-residence evoke the often taught works of Edward Hopper, David Hockney’s collages and Andy Warhol’s pop art. I think it is important to enhance the teaching of representative artists of their respective movements by exposing students to living, breathing artists that have talent and an engaging aesthetic. Keep your lessons fresh and mix it up; there is a world of practicing artists waiting to be recognized and discovered that are worthy of our attention. Check out these artists and see how they may tie in to your curriculum.

In Search of French Broad Sweets
Oil on Canvas, 60"H x 72"W
This is a scene from Asheville, North Carolina
by John Sanchez

John Sanchez is a talented American artist originally from New Jersey who draws and paints scenes of everyday life like parking lots, interiors of markets and cars on the road (to name a few) in dark umbers and siennas with contrasting light that creates a dramatic effect. His technique has expressionistic strokes with a realistic aesthetic that captures the fleeting moments in life with depth and subtle detail. His artwork can be connected to themes like documenting scenes in everyday life that capture transit and automobiles, travel and landscape, which are all relevant when teaching perspective, various painting techniques and how to use color to a create mood in a composition.

Tom Cocotos’s collage work is unique, beautifully executed and intriguing with its materials and subject matter. I love mixed media and collage work and it isn’t easy to successfully integrate materials and develop an original aesthetic and Mr. Cocotos exceeds with his masterful use of white space that poetically balances his compositions. He does a lot of commission work that involves portraiture and some of his portraits incorporate text that pertains to the person and creates subtle meaning in his work. His recent collages are inspired by the bees that flit about (and unfortunately die) in his studio space in Miami and he is intrigued by the complicated insects that are fuzzy, intricate and strong yet delicate at the same time, like much of his artwork. He incorporates carefully torn pieces of paper and found objects into his bee subjects that lends to abstraction and can be associated to collage artists who have left their mark like Kurt Schwitters, David Hockney and Joseph Cornell. Mr. Cocotos’s collage works have valuable teaching points and could inspire an art lesson that integrates the study of nature and insects with collage techniques that explore materials.

WI-FI in the Afterlife Jim Morrison
Acrylic & Transfer on Wood
47"H x 36"W
by Alejandro Vigilante

Finally, another contemporary artist that is revisualizing the theme of pop art is Alejandro Vigilante. He is a Miami-based multimedia painter who is in the process of developing a new strain of Neo-Pop art, loosely titled "i-Pop" or sometimes referred to as "iArt", as stated on his website. His artwork can be linked to technology and social media and pop culture icons that transcend time. He appropriates images that are saturated with color and have a pixel-like composition that mimics the technology he is borrowing from. Instead of just teaching about Andy Warhol when it comes to Pop Art and iconic images, check out Mr. Vigilante’s creations that take the theme further with today’s social media buzzwords and formats. There are many disciplines Mr. Vigilante’s work can be linked to like learning image-editing software like Adobe Photoshop, the history of Pop Art, and the ins and outs of Copyright Law and Creative Commons Use.