The Rubell Museum
Artist-in-Residence Program

Basil Kincaid (2023)  |  Alejandro Piñeiro Bello (2023)  |  Alexandre Diop (2022)  |  Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe (2021)  |  Kennedy Yanko (2021)  |  Genesis Tramaine (2020)  |  Amoako Boafo (2019)  |  Jonathan Lyndon Chase (2018)  |  Allison Zuckerman (2017)  |  Cy Gavin (2016)  |  Sonia Gomes (2015)  |  Lucy Dodd (2014)  |  Oscar Murillo (2012)  |  Sterling Ruby (2011)

 

The Rubell Museum’s acclaimed artist-in-residence program was established in 2011 as a continuation of the Museum’s mission to support emerging artists, spotlight a diverse mix of contemporary voices, and encourage public dialogue. Made possible by support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the program provides early-career artists with a six-week to three-month residency that offers the opportunity to deepen and expand their practices. The artist-in-residence program is a natural outgrowth of the Rubells’ multi-generational family passion for discovering, engaging, and supporting many of today’s most compelling artists, and participants have included artists that the Rubells have engaged with through ongoing relationship building and studio visits. The residency culminates in a year-long solo presentation at the Rubell Museum Miami, and new works created over the course of the residency are acquired into the museum’s unparalleled collection of more than 7,400 contemporary artworks.

Most recently, the position was held by Basil Kincaid, a St. Louis-born artist who splits their time between the US and Africa, and Havana-born, Miami-based artist Alejandro Piñeiro Bello. Kincaid’s post-disciplinary practice examines relationships between ancestry, place, and the contemporary constructed self, and incorporates quilting, collaging, photography, installation, performance, and the use of found materials. Piñeiro Bello focuses his practice on the Caribbean diaspora, Cuba, and the surrounding island nations’ cultural identities and histories. He paints using traditional materials, such as oil on raw linen or burlap, and works with a strong color palette to create images that capture the region’s splendor.

Works created by each artist over the course of their residencies are presented in concurrent solo exhibitions, Basil Kincaid: Spirit in the Gift and Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, on view through November 2024 at the Rubell Museum Miami.

Previous Rubell Museum Artists-in-Residence include:

 

2022

Vienna-based, Franco-Senegalese artist Alexandre Diop, whose practice explores the legacies of colonialism and diaspora while tackling universal themes of ancestry, suffering, and historical violence, served as the 2022 artist-in-residence. Works developed during his residency are featured in the solo exhibition Alexandre Diop: Jooba Jubba, l’Art du Defi, the Art of Challenge, which debuted at the Rubell Museum Miami in 2022 and is currently on view at the Rubell Museum DC through October 2024.

 

2021

The Museum hosted Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe and Kennedy Yanko as artists-in-residence, both of whom had the opportunity to realize their largest works to date through the experience. Quaicoe, a Ghanian painter, used his residency to explore the phenomenon of twins through double portraiture. Yanko, whose practice encompasses painting and sculpture, created four abstract sculptures from readymade forms she salvaged from scrapyards in South Florida.

  

 

2020

Brooklyn-based artist Genesis Tramaine created a series of layered portraits during her six-week residency at the Museum, completed during the period of lockdown and isolation accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic. The series of eight paintings created during this time reflect a studio practice guided by her spiritual upbringing and study of the Bible. The works, depicting biblical figures and portraits, were featured in her solo exhibition Sanctuary.

 

2019

Ghanian artist Amoako Boafo is a figurative painter whose practice is based in representation, documentation, and celebration of Blackness. He served as the first artist-in-residence at the Rubell Museum’s Allapattah campus.

 

2018

Jonathan Lyndon Chase, an interdisciplinary artist whose practice utilizes painting, video, sound, and sculpture to depict queer Black love and community, created works illustrating domestic scenes with their romantic partner over the course of their residency.

 

2017

During her 2017 residency, Allison Zuckerman created large format paintings and sculptures using the Museum’s main gallery as her studio space. The works reference historical paintings and internet culture as their point of departure, utilizing paint and digitally manipulating printed images to create portraits suffused with cultural and societal critiques. ​

 

2016

Cy Gavin is a multimedia artist who works in paint, sculpture, performance art, and video. During his residency he created a suite of works that drew inspiration from his time visiting his father’s native Bermuda and driving through the South from New York to Miami. Gavin worked in the raw space of what would become the Rubell Museum’s Allapattah campus, painting on bare cinderblock; the walls still bear his overpainting and notes.

 

2015

Brazilian artist Sonia Gomes, who served as the Rubell Museum’s artist-in-residence in 2015, combines secondhand textiles with everyday materials such as furniture, driftwood, and wire to create abstract sculptures that center Afro-Brazilian traditions and historically feminized modes of artmaking.

 

2014

Painter and installation artist Lucy Dodd creates work using synthesized pigments from various organic and inorganic matter, frequently invoking art historical and mythological symbolism. Works developed during her residency, which were inspired by her travels to Spain and her experience viewing Picasso’s Guernica, were presented in the exhibition Lucy Dodd: Guernica.

 

2012

Works by multimedia artist Oscar Murillo were presented at the Rubell Museum in his first solo exhibition in the U.S., following a five-week residency at the museum. His practice emphasizes the notion of cultural exchange and the ways in which ideas are interspersed, while exploring the conditions of globalization and its attendant state of flux.

  

2011

Sterling Ruby served as the Rubell Museum’s inaugural artist-in-residence. His practice incorporates a large variety of media including ceramics, painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, video, and textiles, and reflects a variety of influences including aberrant psychologies, hip-hop culture, masculinity, violence, globalization, and American domination and decline. During his residency, he created four monumental paintings scaled to fit the Museum’s gallery space; the works were exhibited in the first presentation to exclusively display the artist’s painting.

 

 

Artist-in-Residence Program generously supported by: