Lauren Shapiro grew up in a neighborhood separated from the Everglades marshlands by a just strip of highway, a fact she credits for her early and ongoing fascination with exploring unknown places. “Growing up where I did sparked my early curiosity to explore and observe the native Florida environment,” says the Miami-based artist. “I always wanted to know more about [places that were just] beyond reach.”
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That interest for discovering the natural world has not diminished. In fact, it’s been a recurring theme in Shapiro’s art career, and it defines her most recent exhibition, Pastiche, at Vizcaya Museum & Gardens in Coconut Grove. Part of Vizcaya’s Contemporary Art Program, which commissions artists to develop original historic, site-specific work in the public realm, the installation’s ceramic sculptures were inspired by Shapiro’s love for natural forms and materials, and informed by the design of Paul Chalfin, the late artistic director behind Vizcaya’s decoration; even more specifically by Chalfin’s approach to pastiche, the blending of styles to create a cohesive whole, and its many superior examples throughout the property.

“It’s a choreography of sources, inspirations, and references that can be directly traced back to Chalfin’s work,” says Shapiro about the exhibition and its activation within Vizcaya’s enclosed loggia, reception area, and breakfast room, three of the palazzo’s main spaces. Detailed with symbols prevalent throughout Vizcaya— seahorses, orchids, corals, and the like—the pieces’ colors were meant to evoke the feeling of a lush greenhouse. One selection in particular, Spectral Nature, holds a glass orb that produces a hologram-like effect of the orchids and palms found at Vizcaya, reminding viewers of a late 1800s parlor trick.

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