Fort Lauderdale, FL
Fort Lauderdale has shed its Spring Break reputation to emerge as one of South Florida's most serious arts cities. FATVillage — the Flagler Arts and Technology Village — anchors the creative district with monthly art walks and wall-to-wall murals on its converted industrial buildings. Las Olas Boulevard and Flagler Village complete a triangle of outdoor art that draws national artists to the city year-round.
Featured Artists
All artists →HUSH
Newcastle-based artist HUSH combines the tattoo-inflected iconography of Japanese woodblock print traditions — geishas, cherry blossoms, koi — with a geometric abstraction that fragments and reassembles his subjects behind shards of color. "Atlantic Dream" on Las Olas positions a geisha figure against an abstracted Atlantic seascape, the waves rendered in flat woodblock style while the figure dissolves into diamond-grid geometry.
POSE
Chicago-born muralist Michael Thompson (POSE) brought his large-format mastery to FATVillage's most prominent wall. "FAT City Gold" is a four-story abstract composition in gold leaf, ochre, and deep cobalt that references both Chicago freight-train graffiti and the color fields of Fort Lauderdale's high-noon subtropical light — a work that seems to change temperature as the sun moves across the sky.
Kelsey Montague
New York artist Kelsey Montague specializes in "What Lifts You" interactive wing murals designed so viewers become part of the composition — standing in front of the wings to complete the image and photograph themselves as part of the art. "New River Wings" in Flagler Village features wings designed from native Florida botanicals: Spanish moss, live oak leaves, great egret feathers, and bromeliads.