By AIRIE staff AIRIE is pleased to present current Artists in Residence in Everglades Dana Sherwood and Mark Dion at Lester’s for an artist talk and info session about the Artists in Residence in Everglades program. Sherwood and Dion will be fresh out of the wilderness, and will tell us about their recent projects and their time as artists in residence living and working in the Everglades. The event will begin at 1PM on Saturday March 17 at Lester’s (2519 NW 2nd Ave., Miami, FL 33127) and is free and open to the public.

About AIRE: Artists in Residence in Everglades offers 12 artists per year a live/work space in the southern section of Everglades National Park for one month at a time. Since 2001, over 100 artists have participated in the residency program. Application info can be found here: http://www.nps.gov/ever/supportyourpark/everartistinresidence.htm

About the artists: Mark Dion, born in New Bedford, Massachusetts holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Hartford School of Art, Connecticut. Dion’s work examines the ways in which dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge, and the natural world. “The job of the artist,” he says, “is to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention.” Dion is the co-director of Mildred’s Land, an innovative visual art education and residency program in Beach Lake, Pennsylvania. Dion is currently working with the architectural firm of James Corner/ Field Operations and Creative Time, on the visual art programming and redesigning of the Seattle Waterfront. This includes the development of a long term visual art strategy for the site as well as establishing large scale permanent ecological interventions. Dion lives with his wife and frequent collaborator Dana Sherwood in New York City and works worldwide.

Dana Sherwood, was born in New York and received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the University of Maine in 2006. Sherwood’s work negotiates the tenuous balance between nature and artifice to interrogate the semiotics of desire and melancholia present in the intersection of the natural and material worlds. The work examines notions of abundance through a visual representation of excess and decadence. Often depicting nature under manipulated conditions, and taking cues from historical vanitas painting, the work is, at heart, Memento Mori, but its multi-faceted interpretation and unconventional materials add layer upon layer of meaning.  Sherwood has exhibited her work in New York, New Orleans, and in venues throughout Europe. She was awarded a residency fellowship at LMCC Swing Space in 2011 and was chosen for Art Omi’s summer artist residency program earlier that year. Dana Sherwood currently lives in NY with her husband and frequent collaborator, Mark Dion.