Break-Through Miami, a new site-specific installation by Valerie Hegarty, employs a trompe l'oeil painting aesthetic that reverses the flat gallery space into a vibrant rendering of the Miami landscape and architecture directly outside its walls. Hegarty applies thousands of layers of painted fragile materials (paper, foamcore, glue, etc.) to the walls and floors and then alters them—ripping and removing—until she achieves her desired effect. This painstakingly detailed process is one that she's developed a reputation for—a technique she calls "reverse archaeology."

Installation view of Break-Through Miami by Valerie Hegarty

Old building architecture and nature coalesce in the installation. Three-dimensional native sea fowl lend a heightened sense of reality to the crumbling brick and peeling paint Hegarty creates, providing viewers extra opportunity to explore and interact with Hegarty's creation.

The gallery, Locust Projects, writes of Hegarty and the installation:

Informed by the current turbulent state of our country while also excavating from America’s past, Hegarty turns the gallery into a dramatic place of change. Often informed by the existing architecture and collaging onto the original structure, Hegarty creates the illusion of an environment under transition or altogether forgotten. Hegarty collapses exterior and interior space with the finesse of the artist’s hand and calls into question the stability of the institution. The viewer is left to ponder the gallery’s altered interior and the veracity of the transformation.

Hegarty interacting with her Break-Through Miami installation

If you’re lucky enough to be in the Miami area, don’t miss out on the chance to stop by Locust Projects to see Hegarty’s installation, which runs until October 16th, 2010.

Valerie Hegarty's Break-Through Miami
On View: September 11th – October 16th, 2010
Locust Projects
155 NE 38th Street, Suite 100
Miami, FL 33137

Hegarty's edition, First Harvest in the Wilderness with Pileated Woodpecker, is also still available at 11"x14" size on 20x200.