Meet A Tireless Champion Of The Miami Art Community

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Meet A Tireless Champion Of The Miami Art Community

The Insider: Kathryn Mikesell

Beyond the glamour of Art Basel, Miami has been enjoying an artistic renaissance, and the city couldn’t find a better champion than aficionada Kathryn Mikesell.

In 2008, she co-founded The Fountainhead with her husband, Dan Mikesell, to support the art community. The program now offers international artists a prestigious residency, affordable studio space for locals and regular events connecting collectors and creators. Luxe spoke with Mikesell recently about her work and the city’s evolving art scene.

Attraction to art: My husband and I both travel extensively for work; we delved into contemporary art as something to share together. We began collecting and quickly realized we were really drawn to the artists and how their perspectives changed the way we viewed the world.

The Fountainhead’s origins: The residency began to support local museums by hosting their visiting artists. Now we partner with worldwide organizations to bring artists to Miami. Studio space needed outside the public eye without term limits led to Fountainhead Studios.

Today’s mission: Our goals haven’t changed. We want to catalyze the careers of local artists, bring talent from around the world to Miami and build a closer community through art.

Collecting philosophy: We take a very personal approach, searching for works we would want to wake up to every morning. It’s never about where this artist is going to be in the next 20 years.

Hope for the future: To see more collaborations between different artistic mediums. And I would also love to see the business world engaged in more experience-based collaborations with artists.

PHOTO: JAMES MIILLE