Images
A More Fluid Atmosphere:
Rose Marie Cromwell
Miami is the most economically unequal city in the United States, and the most culturally syncretic. It also has the most vulnerable ecosystem due to climate change and the porous limestone on which it stands. Miami is on a precipice of change that the whole country may eventually undergo.
In Miami, a major port and global economic hub, the effects of globalization are accentuated. Many Miami residents live in close proximity to industrial spaces that house goods to fuel the global economy. The city is a patchwork of disjointed residential, commercial, and industrial neighborhoods, many of which are rapidly gentrifying. The local environment is neglected often in the mirage that is global commerce. I depict the confrontation of an increasingly globalized world with the intimacy of individual lives. I am looking for moments when there is a strong individual narrative and the deep spirituality prevalent in Miami emerges.
To depict the geographic and multicultural complexity of Miami, I photograph still lifes, abstract landscapes, street scenes, and performances. Photography is often used to describe specific geographies. While I work in the tradition of documentary photography, I use a more conceptual approach to propose an alternative narrative of Miami, that conveys the isolating and tantalizing essence of globalization and its effect on our intimate lives.
For this exhibition, in addition to prints framed in a conventional manner, I will experiment production and presentation methods, such as mounting photographs to raw plywood and printing on commercial vinyl, in order to bring the images and the materials they depict closer together. A small selection of found objects Cromwell has gathered while photographing around Miami will also be included as readymade sculptures to further evoke the textures of the city.
About the Artist:
Rose Marie Cromwell is based in Miami, but has spent the past 15 years between New York, Panama, and Cuba. Her work explores the effect of globalization on our lives, culture, and environment. Her first book, El Libro Supremo de la Suerte was published in 2018 by TIS books, and was awarded the Light Work Photo Book Prize named one of the “25 Best Photobooks of 2018” by TIME Magazine. She has had solo exhibitions at Diablo Rosso Gallery and Antitesis Gallery, both in Panama City, Panama. Her work has also been exhibited at Aperture Foundation in New York, PRIZM Art Fair in Miami, The Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, and The Silver Eye Arts Center in Pittsburgh, among many others. Cromwell is recipient of a Fulbright Grant, a Getty Reportage grant, Oolite Creator Awards and was a Light Work Artist in Residence. She has just published her second book with TIS books, Eclipse, which describes the process of matrescence during the pandemic. She frequently works for The New York Times, TIME, The New Yorker, and Harpers.
Hours
Open at all times
Location
Windows at Walgreens
6700 Collins Ave
Miami Beach