Beatriz Monteavaro: Marseille Drive

Beatriz Monteavaro: “Marseille Drive”

Beatriz Monteavaro’s work is informed by childhood memories of growing up in a Cuban household in Miami Beach, where family, fantasy, music, and popular culture shaped her imagination. For the Walgreens Windows at 74th and Collins, she returns to her family’s first years in the United States, when North Beach became their first home after leaving Cuba.

According to the artist, “I was very young and my memories of this time are fragmented and dream-like. With the help of family photos as reference, the paintings and sculptures I’m presenting represent mine, my family’s early years in the United States—our time on North Beach, birthdays, get-togethers, and regular days, through the lens of preschool me.”

In this work, Monteavaro’s heroes shift from fantasy figures and rock stars to the people closest to her: her family. The installation is a tender reflection on migration, refuge, memory, and the making of a new home. “I am grateful we were given refuge. I am grateful we were given a chance to live and thrive.”

“Home
To a new and shiny place
Make our bed and we’ll say our grace
Freedom’s light burning warm
Freedom’s light burning warm.”

– Neil Diamond, America

About the artist

Beatriz Monteavaro (b. 1971) in Havana, Cuba and lives and works in Miami, Florida. Monteavaro received a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1996). Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, sculpture, drawing, and music, drawing on personal and cultural memory, Cuban-American identity, popular culture, migration, the natural world, and science. In addition to her visual practice, Monteavaro is a drummer and member of the Miami-based punk/metal band Holly Hunt, with music and rhythm informing her approach to making and thinking.

Selected solo exhibitions include “Tonight, We Can Be As One Tonight” (2026), Under the Bridge, North Miami, Florida; “Beatriz Monteavaro: Vacation” (2020), Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at FSW, Fort Myers, Florida; and “Nochebuena” (2015), Locust Projects, Miami, Florida. Selected group exhibitions include “Draw: The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common” (2026), Passerelle Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brest, France; “South Florida Cultural Consortium” (2023), Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, North Miami, Florida; and “A Very Anxious Feeling: Voices of Unrest in the American Experience” (2020), Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, Virginia. Monteavaro received the Black Mountain College Active Archive Residency (2025) and the South Florida Cultural Consortium Award (2022).