“Mangroves”

a group exhibition of works by

Xavier Cortada

and

Josh Liberman

at

Hibiscus Gallery
Pinecrest Gardens
11000 S. Red Road
Pinecrest, FL 33156

Few organisms rival the mangrove’s ability to fill so many diverse roles. They help combat erosion and storm-surge, remove large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, and serve as a breeding ground and nursery for countless animals. Mangroves fall victim to development as their habitats are replaced by man-made barriers such as sprawling sea-walls and rising condos.

In 2006, Xavier Cortada launched The Reclamation Project, a participatory eco-art project that has engaged thousands of volunteers in the planting of over eight acres of mangroves on Biscayne Bay. Cortada displays mangrove paintings he created a decade ago as he innovated his environmental art practice.

Informed by his studies at the University of Miami Department of Biology, Josh Liberman has photographed elements of nature across five continents. In “Mangroves”, he focuses on South Florida’s shrinking wetlands, capturing the remnants of an ecosystem that used to hug the entire coastline.

Meet Cortada and Liberman along with the artists of the Miami River Show in the Hibiscus Gallery  at 12:30 pm on January 21st, 2018 for the opening of the exhibition.

Exhibit runs January 18th through February 19th, 2018

Xavier Cortada, “Mangrove Roots”, acrylic on canvas, 48″ x 36″, 2007.

About the artists:

Xavier Cortada:

Xavier Cortada’s engaged science-art practice is based at FIU School of Environment, Arts and Society and the College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts.  Cortada often engages scientists in his art-making: At CERN, Cortada and a particle physicist created a permanent digital-art piece to celebrate the Higgs boson discovery. Cortada has worked with scientists at Hubbard Brook LTER on a water cycle visualization project driven by real-time data collected at a watershed in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. He has collaborated with a population geneticist to explore our ancestral journeys out of Africa 60,000-years ago, with a molecular biologist to synthesize a DNA strand from a sequence 400 museum visitors randomly generated, and with botanists to develop multi-year participatory eco-art eff orts to reforest mangroves, native trees and wildflowers across Florida.

The Miami artist has created environmental installations (North Pole and South Pole) and eco-art (Taiwan, Hawaii and Holland) projects, and painted community murals addressing peace (Cyprus and Northern Ireland), child welfare  (Bolivia and Panama), AIDS (Switzerland and South Africa) and juvenile justice (Miami and Philadelphia) concerns.  His studio is located at Pinecrest Gardens.

Learn more about his work at www.cortada.com.

Josh Liberman: