Grit & Grain

Grit & Grain: Four Decades of Lens-Based Practice at FIU brings together lens-based works by FIU alumni—many acquired through the Betty Laird Perry Award—alongside photographs by faculty to examine the lasting influence of the university’s photography program. Grounded in a teaching approach that emphasized intuition, close looking, and the artist as a critical witness, the program shaped generations of photographers studying under figures such as Ed Del Valle, Mirta Gómez, William Maguire, and Peggy Nolan, among others. In placing alumni and faculty work in dialogue, the exhibition traces a shared commitment to sharpening the artist’s eye and voice. Together, these works form a vignette not only of South Florida, but of artists’ lives more broadly, with an attentiveness to place, experience, and the act of seeing as both personal and taught.

We are grateful to our Florida International University colleagues at the Art + Art History Department for their support in organizing this exhibition; the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners, and Members of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum; and the Green Family Foundation.

Image caption: Sebastian Muñoz, Sand, Gravel, and Stone #11, 2012. Archival pigment print, 24 ¼ x 35 ¾ inches. Betty Laird Perry Purchase Award. FIU 2013.16.1

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