FLORIDA KEYS COUNCIL OF THE ARTS
Press Release
Contact: Liz Young
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 305-295-4369
9/09/2021

Key West Artist Sally Binard wins South Florida Cultural Consortium 2021 Visual Artists Award

The Florida Keys Council of the Arts is proud to announce that Monroe County artist Sally Binard has been named the recipient of the prestigious 2021 South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artists Award. Sally Binard of Key West, was selected to receive this esteemed, five-county artist fellowship. Sally will receive a monetary award of $15,000 and be included in “The New Art: South Florida Cultural Consortium exhibition”. Featuring the work of 12 preeminent South Florida artists who are recipients of the 2021 South Florida Cultural Consortium awards, the exhibition will host an opening reception on September 16 at 6:30 PM, at FAU University Galleries located at 777 Glades Rd, Boca Raton, FL 33431. The exhibition will be open during regular hours from September 17 – October 30, 2021. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication.

Sally Binard is a primarily self-taught artist, born to first generation Haitian and Belgian immigrants who exposed her to two vastly different styles of art. This had a remarkable influence on her work. Exposure to the Dutch Masters and the vibrant Haitian arts provided a confusing and eclectic idea of what art was, and could be. Her work is a means of recordkeeping and resolving personal questions in addition to creating conversations around identity, history and social issues. Sally lives and works in Key West, Florida. 

The Consortium, an alliance of the arts councils of Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach Counties has conferred the artists with awards at either the $15,000 or $7,500 level. These awards are among the largest such honors accorded by local arts agencies to visual and media artists in the United States. Celebrating 33 years in 2021 (established in 1988), the SFCC has awarded over $4 million in grants to more than 300 artists. In addition to receiving the grant, the artists take part in an exhibition hosted and organized by a visual arts institution in one of the five counties.

The recipients were selected through a two-tier panel process which included the participation of regional and national arts experts. The 2020-2021 regional panel, whose adjudications on March 18, 2021 were based on the evaluation of the artists' work as evidenced by the work samples submitted, was composed of Dejha Carrington, Strategic Communications, National YoungArts Foundation & Co-Founder, Commissioner (Miami-Dade), Meaghan Kent, Curator of Exhibitions Art & Culture Center/Hollywood (Broward), Rene Morales, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Chief Curator, Pérez Art Museum Miami (Miami-Dade), Ates Isildak, Artist, SFCC 2020 Recipient (Palm Beach), and Kara Walker Tome, Independent Curator (Palm Beach). The submissions selected by the regional panel for further consideration were forwarded for final adjudication and selection to the national panel on April 9, 2021, which was comprised of: Daniel S. Palmer, Curator, Public Art Fund New York, NY, Grace Deveney, Associate Curator Prospect, New Orleans, LA, Jeffrey De Blois, Assistant Curator and Publications Manager, Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Boston, MA.

The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists is a cooperative project funded in part with the support of the Boards of County Commissioners of Broward, Miami-Dade, Martin and Monroe Counties and the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County. For additional information, please visit https://www.fau.edu/artsandletters/galleries/

###