The final exhibition of the gallery’s 2024-25 season is collaboARTive's 2025 Biennial!

collaboARTive is a non-profit, homegrown arts organization founded by Iggy and Jean Font that offers accessible studio space and professional development opportunities for artists, while fostering community and creativity for all.

The 2025 Biennial is the fourth iteration of the collaboration between collaboARTive and the Saladrigas Gallery at Belen Jesuit. This juried exhibition features mostly large-scale works of varying media by 29 artists affiliated with collaboARTive. Viewers can expect the unexpected with a curated selection of abstract painting, collage, sculpture, video, and mixed-media installations that will surprise and delight.

EXHIBITION CATALOG

Design by Charlie Calderin,
Photography by Phillip Karp.

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2025 Biennial: Tradition and Change
Introduction by Sylvie Daubar-San Juan, M.A., M.L.I.S.

Four collaborations in the making, the 2025 Biennial at the Carlos and Olga Saladrigas Gallery is a testament to a persistent partnership between collaboARTive and Belen Jesuit Preparatory School. Founded to support emerging and mid-career artists in their pursuit to obtain studio space and unite with a flourishing artistic community, collaboARTive is a non-profit organization conceptualized by its co-founders, artists Ignacio Font and Jean Blackwell Font. Since 2018, the Saladrigas Gallery has partnered with Font and Blackwell Font to highlight the work of visual artists practicing in South Florida.

In its first iteration, which took place before the inception of collaboARTive, participating artists in the Saladrigas Gallery exhibition were associated with the Bird Road Art District, the location of the studio of Font and Blackwell Font, where both continue to create as a part of a bustling artistic network. Nestled in close proximity to the Palmetto Expressway and Bird Road, or Southwest 40th Street, the Bird Road Art District was a largely industrial sector that transformed to foster artistic work and was designated an official art district by Miami Dade County in 2000. Seeking to grow its identity, the district initiated the monthly Bird Road Art Walk in 2010 and remains a vibrant community as is evident if one visits an open studio evening. Desiring to convey their solidarity as an arts community, Font and Blackwell Font organized the debut collaboration with Belen Jesuit through an invitational approach, keeping in mind the geographic markers of the district in the inclusion of participating artists.

Two years later, in 2020, the Saladrigas Gallery and the Bird Road Art District artists allied again to coordinate an exhibition, which was titled BRADICA, like the 2018 show. An acronym for “Bird Road Art District Ignatian Center for the Arts,” the latter referred to the home of the Saladrigas Gallery at Belen Jesuit. Debuting with a lively opening reception before the shutdown of public spaces and schools due to the pandemic in March of that year, the exhibition included internationally renowned established artists such as Jose Bedia and Rafael Consuegra.

With the founding of collaboARTive in 2022, Font and Blackwell Font channeled their passion for fostering community among visual artists through events such as Noche de Arte, highly touted group exhibitions in Miami Dade and Broward Counties, consequently expanding their reach beyond the Bird Road Art District; although, they remain anchored to the area through the studio they share with other artists connected with the non-profit arts organization. Community partnerships expanded to include institutions such as the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami, which hosts Noche de Arte and the accompanying monthly exhibitions in a gallery space. As a reflection of the growth of collaboARTive, the 2023 exhibition at the Saladrigas Gallery was aptly named Outside the Lines: A Collaboration with collabARTive. Symbolically, the title reflected the inclusion of artists from all parts of Miami Dade County, including many beyond the demarcations of the Bird Road Art District, though it stayed true to its invitational format and welcomed work in all formats and sizes. Simultaneously, it reflected the creative spirit of artists, and their willingness to challenge boundaries. Over forty artworks were shown and ranged from a work in consonance with tradition, an alabaster sculpture with autobiographical features titled The Philosopher by David Valiente to an inventive mixed media piece featuring glass globes enclosed by nylon stockings titled Seer Fear by Ena Marrero. A “Meet the Artists” evening enriched Belen students’ exposure to the arts and set a precedent for an event that will be renewed during the current show.

As a testament to the commitment to fresh approaches and high caliber platforms to showcase artistic work, the 2025 reprise of the alliance between collaboARTive and the Saladrigas Gallery was launched through a juried exhibition format. A panel of six South Florida visual arts professionals including Jean Blackwell Font, Ignacio Font, Stephanie Hurst, Maria Ines Lea.ez, Maria Patiño, and John Witty selected twenty-nine pieces for inclusion

in the 2025 Biennial. Feeling an affinity towards the spiritual associations with the number four and in honor of the fourth partnership with Belen Jesuit, the preferred minimum dimensions for submission were four feet by four feet, creating an array of formidable pieces. From Mary Larsen’s What Remains, a canvas providing a spectral view through the illusion of diminishing space to Lisu Vega’s Tejiendo recuerdos merging a photographic print and textiles, the works represent a mix of artistic media, cultural context, and subjects. Binding these works is the belief

that creativity is an individual pursuit of personal expression that thrives most profoundly in community, consistent with the mission of collaboARTive. In solidarity with the belief that the humanities are a rich component of education and a reflection of society, the Saladrigas Gallery teems with excitement and joyful anticipation for the convergence of the public with the artwork meticulously selected for the 2025 Biennial, collaboratively.