Looking Back at Beatriz Monteavaro: When You Wish Upon a Star and Noche Buena
Interview with the Artist
You are one of the few past exhibiting artists that has shown at Locust Projects twice, first in 2003 and then in 2015, tell us a little about those shows
With When You Wish Upon a Star, I had just found a treasure trove of my old Adam Ant posters that I had lost and had been periodically looking for at my parents' house, and I wanted to do something with them.
The real Adam Ant had been going through some problems here on earth, and I thought designing and building part of a spaceship for him might symbolically or literally help him.
Similarly, or conversely, for the Noche Buena exhibit, my parents had just sold and moved out of our family home, and I had acquired half of all the family photos of our lifetime. It was a heavy thing to lose my childhood home and seeing all the photos of Christmas pasts, reminded me of how many family members we had lost already. The installation I created was perhaps a ways to hold on to all those Christmas Eves, at my parents' house, one last time. Both installations featured seating.
Noche Buena may have been a spaceship too.
Please describe any new ideas and practices you incorporated into your projects. How did the experience of working at Locust inform your future projects and the evolution of your current practice?
The shows at Locust helped me explore installation art in a wonderful non-commercial setting. Both shows inspired out of the box thinking and techniques from me.
In one sentence, can you describe what the Locust Projects experience meant to you?
My Locust experiences have made me a deeper, more thoughtful artist.
Tell us about your latest project for O, Miami.
Miami native Emma Trelles, reached out to me to collaborate with her on a project for O, Miami. She'd seen the Star Trek drawings I'd been doing throughout the pandemic and loved them. We are both huge Star Trek fans and agreed that the message of humans making it to the future was a good one that we all needed right now. I made a new set of drawings, based on the second movie, Wrath of Khan. Emma designed and led a poetry workshop, inspired by those drawings. All the poems the participants wrote as well as my drawings, were put together in a printed zine by designers Rebekah Monson and Andrea Vigil. I distributed the free zines to be available to the public at locations across Miami including, Locust Projects, PAMM, MOCA, Primary Projects, Miami-Dade’s Main Library, and Sweat Records. All the workshop participants/poets received copies as well.
Describe any pivotal opportunities in your career that made a lasting impact?
A two week residency Gavin , my partner, and I did in Marseille, still sticks with me. It was also an honor to work with Jade Dellinger on my survey show Vacation, last year at Florida Southwestern State College’s Bob Rauschenberg Gallery. He suggested inviting Jane Wiedlin of the GoGo-'s to come to the opening and play with me and a friend. It was a totally mind blowing experience to show a childhood hero the work I had made about her and her band, and then play some of their songs with her.
What are you working on next?
I've been doing a lot of drawing and painting. I've been taking a lot of the walks on Miami Beach, and hunting down a lot of old Cuban, Hawaiian, and Exotica records, so that's my inspiration right now.
Where can people find, see, follow, or support your work?
bmonteavaro.com and IG @beatmyguest
What’s one fun fact about you that not many people know?
I play drums in two different bands, Holly Hunt and Saavik.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Beatriz Monteavaro is an artist and musician whose work is influenced by monster movies, science fiction, Disney World (especially it’s themed area Adventureland, a midcentury representation of Africa, Asia, Polynesia, and The Caribbean), and underground music scenes including the 1970’s English punk scene and the Miami underground scene surrounding Churchill’s Pub, which she has been a part of since 1991.
Beatriz Monteavaro was born in Cuba, and received a BFA from Tyler School of Art of Temple University. Her work has been exhibited in venues such as Annina Nosei Gallery, New York; Miami Art Museum, Miami; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; NFA Space, Chicago; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C; Tent, Rotterdam; Galerie Edward Mitterrand, Geneva; Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris; The Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum at FIU, Miami, among others. She has had solo exhibitions at Las Cienegas Projects, Los Angeles; Derek Eller Gallery, NYC; Galerie Sultana, Paris; Locust Projects, Miami; Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami; Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Miami; The University Galleries at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL; The Gulf Coast Museum of Art in Largo, FL; and CUNSTHAUS, Tampa, FL. Her work has been reviewed and featured in Flash Art, ArtUS, ArtNews and Art Papers.
Monteavaro plays drums and is one half of the band Holly Hunt and one quarter of the band SAAVIK. She has a solo sound project called Ellen Ripley. Monteavaro works at a record store, which she considers part of her practice.
Monteavaro lives and works in Miami.