Arts & Conversations presents An Evening of Art & Impact

Lauren Richman

Lauren Richman is a curator and art historian who holds the title of William and Sarah Ross Soter Curator of Photography at the Norton Museum of Art. She earned her Ph.D. in Art History from Southern Methodist University, focusing on post-WWII US American photography and film and their intersections with transcultural political messaging, and histories of war, labor, and consumerism. Other interests include experimental photographic processes and analogue techniques. Richman has previously held curatorial and research positions at the Indiana University Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

Brian Delgado Garay

Brian Delgado Garay (b.1990) is a Peruvian photographer and art educator based in South Florida, primarily making work about the connection of the body with human relationships. Brian started as a Ballet dancer in Lima, Peru and moved to the U.S. where he earned a BFA in Photography in Barry University. He has been working as an Art Teacher at Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach since 2019. Brian has experience in darkroom techniques, alternative processes and digital printing.

Violet Lay

Violet Lay is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on film and photography. Working with alternative processes and film their work focuses on vulnerability and the human experience. Graduating dreyfoos in 2024 as a visual arts major, Violet plans to go to college to further learn the art of storytelling.

Chris Snyder

Moderator

Chris Snyder is a Palm Beach county native and the CEO of the Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation. He earned his Ph.D. in Global Leadership from Indiana Tech, focusing on the philanthropic perceptions of millennial global leaders. Snyder began his career in banking and finance, managing financial centers with Wells Fargo and Washington Mutual. In 2008, he pivoted careers and helped launch a new minor league baseball team in Fort Wayne called the Fort Wayne TinCaps. Snyder has also held roles as a Corporate Partnership Manager with the Miami Marlins and St Louis Cardinals. After 6+ years in baseball, Snyder became a Director of Partnership Marketing at the BB&T Center and later left to enter the nonprofit world. Thus far, Snyder has held roles within the American Cancer Society, Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, American Friends of Magen David Adom, and is now at Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation.

Kevin Sabo

Kevin Sabo is a painter (b. 1992) from Virginia Beach, VA (USA) and currently based in Richmond, VA (USA). He trained and studied art throughout his youth and graduated with a BFA in Studio Art from James Madison University in 2015. His paintings are typically multi-media - acrylic, ink, spray, collage work that is largely based around the figure, often playing with character and fashion. Themes of queer identity, satire, existential revelations can be spotted throughout his expressive work. Sabo describes his paintings as large sketches, as they are never pre-determined ahead of the end result. “My paintings are my drag. Colors and patterns are my joy, and jagged lines are my pain. Each time I enter the studio, I play dress up inside the compositions I invent. These busty babes know all my past secrets, and their pursed lips hold my untold future.” - Kevin Sabo

Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson (b. 1998) is a Richmond-based painter. Dabbling between painting, drawing, sculpture, and his new-found hunger for interior design, Richardson's current work is a product from technical elements that each practice possesses. Binding the divides between heaven and hell, uncertainty unveils itself in the hallucinatory realms of Richardson's work. Richardson received his BFA in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2020.

Mike De Paola

Moderator

Mike De Paola is the founder of Threshold Worldwide, the parent company of the art gallery, TW Fine Art. Mike is a founding partner and lead investor in Ikigai Media (Ikigaimedia.com). Ikigai is the parent company of Bodan Kuma, a full-service music production facility and record label (bodankuma.com); Bulletproof Bear, which provides music licensing and clearance, original composition, music supervision, administration and production (bulletproofbear.com); and Central Post LA (centralpostla.com), a boutique full-service post-production facility with expertise in language localization and ADR. Ikigai is based in Hollywood, CA and also houses Gardener Recordings, Institution Post and UKN.

Mike started his career on Wall Street beginning in the 1980's, with a brief two-year hiatus to receive his MBA at UCLA. Prior to transitioning to a full-time entrepreneur, Mike worked as a derivatives sales-trader, most recently for JP Morgan.

Mike serves on the board of advisors at the Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. He is on the board of trustees at the Museum of Arts and Design, the painting and sculpture acquisitions Committee at the Whitney Museum of American Art and on the board of directors of Art Production Fund. He is chair of the art advisory board at Coalition for the Homeless (ArtWalk NY), vice chair of the board of directors at Feature Hudson Foundation and a member of the board of Urban Technology. Mike is also a founding board member of New Wave Art Weekend in Palm Beach, Florida.

In November 2012, Mike was recognized in the Wall Street Journal as “Donor of the Day” for his philanthropy and in 2016, ArtWalk honored Mike alongside artist Kenny Scharf. In 2020, Mike was honored with the prestigious Outstanding Service Award at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Mike has been featured in “The Collector’s Eye,” an annual article in The Art Newspaper during Art Basel Miami Beach, and has been referred to as a “Super Collector” by Architectural Digest.

Mike is currently based in New York, Palm Beach and Los Angeles.

Sandra Ramos

Sandra Ramos b. Havana 1969, lives and work in Miami.

Sandra Ramos is a Cuban – American multimedia visual artist who achieved an international reputation in the 90s by expressing her critical relationship to political-social issues related to the traumas of identity and emigration. She uses various materials and techniques such as video, photography, paintings, installation, and etchings. Ramos obtained an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute; she graduated from the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) and San Alejandro Art Academy in Cuba.

Ramos has exhibited for over thirty years, among her solo: “Entropydoscopes. Sandra Ramos”. Lowe Art Museum. University of Miami (2023). “Both Sides Now” DRCLAS Harvard (2022); “Déjà vu” PAAP, Miami (2018); “Watertight” ASU Museum, (2016); “Bridging the Past, Present, and Future” American University Museum, Washington DC (2014); “Puentes” National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana (2012)

Her work was shown at Venice Biennial (2013) & Havana Biennial (1994) (2012). Phoenix Art Museum (2023) Artyard. NJ (2022); MFA Boston (2020). PAMM, Miami (2018). Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2017).

Ramos received Prices and Art Residences such as; The Ellis creator award, Miami (2021); Cleveland Foundation (2017); The Studios of Key West (2016); The Fountainhead Miami (2011), Fuchu Art Museum. Tokyo (2003); Provincetown Fine Arts Center (2002); Barbican Center in London (1999)

Ramo's work is in the collections: MOMA NY, MFA Boston, The San Diego Museum of Art, PAMM; National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana; The Bronx Museum, ASU Museum; The Ludwig Forum Aachen; TBA21 Vienna; Fuchu Art Museum in Tokyo.

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Alejandro Piñeiro Bello

Alejandro Piñeiro Bello (b. 1990, Havana, Cuba) paints the sociocultural mystic splendor of the Caribbean’s culture with a focus on the Caribbean diaspora, Cuba, and the surrounding island nations’ identities, and histories. Using traditional materials, such as oil on raw linen or burlap, he establishes a strong palette that becomes essential in his works—striking color accents bathe between the layers in each painting, making certain areas brighten against a backdrop of deep beige. The images form endless landscapes and folkloric gestures. Physical forms and ideals appear on a timeless plane drawn from the artist’s memories and dreams. Piñeiro Bello participated in major public projects during the Havana Biennials in 2012, 2015, and 2019. His works have also been shown in exhibitions presented by Pace Gallery Seoul; KDR305 in Miami; Pace Gallery in Palm Beach; NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana

Amalia Perea Mahoney

Amalia Perea Mahoney is a Cuban American born in Havana and emigrated to the United States in 1963. Amalia has been actively engaged in the arts world for the past 25 years. She was the owner and Director of Galleria Amalia Mahoney in Chicago specializing in the works of artists from Cuba, the Cuban diaspora and Latin America. She was appointed by President Obama to the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC and served for 7 years. As a Trustee she had a leadership role in organizing International Festivals bringing artists, musicians, and performers from Cuba, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. She also served on the Board of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and was a member of the Women's Board of the University of Chicago. She is married, has one son; she and her husband William reside in Miami Beach, Florida.

Sarah de Blasio

Sarah de Blasio advises private clients, family offices, galleries, and artists on matters of insurance including fine art coverage in her capacity as a broker.

Sarah began her career in insurance advisory when she joined Chartwell Insurance in 2015. Before joining the Chartwell team, Sarah attended the American University in Washington, DC where she received a BA in History and Art History with a minor in American Studies, having completed a thesis in the history of American fine art repatriation in WWII. Sarah also attended Sotheby’s Institute in London where she studied decorative art and the international collections market and Columbia University where she studied art authentication, Post-War American art, and American Art History.

Beyond her work at Chartwell, Sarah is engaged with Artadia, the Art Institute of Chicago (Society for Contemporary Art), the Aspen Art Museum (Director’s Circle), the Brooklyn Museum (Board of Advisors), the LACMA (Acquisitions Committee), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (Emerge Acquisitions Committee), the Renaissance Society (Chicago Committee), the Serpentine Americas Foundation, and the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (10x10 Patron). Sarah has been a proud patron outside of these programs for: the American Federation of Arts, the Chicago Architectural Biennale, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Concern Worldwide, Hyde Park Arts Center, the Navy Seal Foundation, the New Wave Residency Program, PAWS Chicago, Pioneer Works, and UNICEF.

Barbara Chamberlain

Barbara has more than 25 years of experience in private, public, and corporate collections, museums, and galleries. After beginning her career managing works of art in a contemporary art gallery in New York City, she was assistant curator of The FORBES Magazine Collection. More recently, she was the registrar at the Appleton Museum of Art in Ocala, Florida. She joined AIG Private Client Group (now Private Client Select) in 2008 and continues to provide collections management and care, risk management, and loss prevention services to policyholders.

She is a member of the Executive Board of the Friends of the Uffizi Gallery, a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Registrars and Collections Specialists (ARCS), and a member of the ArtTable Florida Chapter Leadership Team.

Barbara holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History and Psychology from Smith College. She earned a Master of Arts in Museum Studies at Johns Hopkins University where she now teaches the first course in private collectors, collections, and museums.

Allison Raddock

Moderator

Allison Raddock has 20 years’ experience in the New York and international art markets working with galleries to build the profiles of contemporary artists through exhibitions, sales, and art fairs. Specializing in contemporary and modern art, her clients include individuals, corporations, foundations, and institutions.

She is the Director of Secondary Market Strategy at Gavlak Gallery in Palm Beach and currently serves as Trustee of the Judy Chicago / Donald Woodman Foundation, a member of the Norton Museum’s Emerging Collectors Council and The Society of the Four Arts Contemporaries.

Barbara Stella

Barbara Stella, President and Chief Conservator of Stella Art Conservation is an established name in the art conservation world for her meticulous, intelligent, and informed approach to art restoration. She brings over 30 years of expertise to this highly specialized field, blending traditional craftsmanship with modern innovations. A native of Italy, Barbara holds an advanced degree in fine art conservation from the Institute of Fine Arts and Restoration, Palazzo Spinelli in Florence.

Over her distinguished career, Barbara has had the privilege of restoring artworks by masters such as Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, Magritte, Salvador Dali, Gerhard Richter, and De Kooning among others. Uniquely, she is one of a select few conservators in the U.S. trained in the use of nanotechnology, a groundbreaking approach to the preservation of highly sensitive artworks.

For Barbara, the art of conservation goes beyond mere technical skills; it is a sacred trust that illuminates both an artist's original intent and the unique significance of each artwork.