The All-Media Juried Biennial bursts with fresh works by Florida artists
By Colleen Dougher
City Link Metromix
The first photograph in Sarah Michelle Rupert's 2007 triptych "The Balloon Pop" depicts a woman holding a large bouquet of colorful helium balloons. The next image shows the same woman holding the balloons, only all but four have popped and colored bits of rubber are falling to the ground. In the final photo, for reasons that aren't clear, they've all popped and colored rubber is raining to the ground like confetti.
Rupert, an administrator at Fort Lauderdale alternative art space the Girls' Club, says that when she shot this series, she was "exploring this idea of trying to show visually in photographs some sort of quirky impossibility, something you can't really see with the naked eye or you wouldn't really see happen."
She didn't see the role she now plays in the Art and Culture Center's fourth annual All-Media Juried Biennial coming, either. Not only was she selected to exhibit at the show, but her colorful images have been used on post cards to promote it. The show is her first since graduating the University of Florida with a bachelor of fine arts in 2007.
"When I saw the post card, I was floored," she says. "I think it's the awesomest thing ever."
Rupert is one of 49 artists selected from 314 Floridians who each submitted three works. "It was kind of an arduous task to review all this because there were a lot of quality submissions," says Nina Arias, the show's sole juror.
