In 2024, Miami-based artist Brookhart Jonquil was commissioned to create Sky Dancer, a site-specific sculptural duo in the alcoves of the Museum’s Great Hall. Please join us for a presentation by Jonquil as he describes that work, along with his larger practice.
Jonquil’s artwork challenges us to become aware of the constructed nature of our perception. Using the visual language of illusion, he works with mirrors and prisms as optical materials, creating objects and images that exist only in relationship with a perceiver. In this artist talk, Jonquil will show us the development of his early works, which attempted to diminish physical material in favor of the intangible– empty space, light, and gravity. Bringing us to his recent ecologically-oriented works, Jonquil traces the evolution of his understanding of space, and shows that our ability to respond appropriately to the challenges facing the world is inseparable from our ability to see the world as it is, which is inseparable from our ability to let go of what we think we see.
Jonquil’s work has been exhibited by the Bass Museum of Art, the De la Cruz Collection, MoCA Tucson, Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, and Fundación Pablo Atchugarry in Uruguay, and is currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts St Petersburg. After earning both his BA in art history and BFA in studio art from the University of Arizona, Jonquil went on to receive his MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010, where he was awarded a graduate fellowship. He has been artist in residence in Everglades National Park, Floodlight in New Delhi, and NARS in Brooklyn, among others. Brookhart Jonquil was born in Santa Cruz, California in 1984.
Artist Talk | Brookhart Jonquil
Saturday, April 19, 2025
11:00 AM–12:00 PM
Marly Room
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
255 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg FL 33701
FREE for MFA Members; Included with the cost of admission for Not-Yet Members.