Nomad: Port to Port by John William Bailly, curated by Colette G. Mello

NOMAD: PORT TO PORT BY JOHN WILLIAM BAILLY, CURATED BY COLETTE MELLO
16 APRIL 2026 – 22 MAY 2026
OPENING: 16 APRIL 2026
MIAMI BEACH VISUAL ARTS GALLERY
MIAMI BEACH URBAN STUDIOS
1602A WASHINGTON AVENUE
MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA 33139

Interior view of an art gallery featuring a long hallway with an abstract painting on one wall and framed artworks on the opposite wall. A single chair is placed in the center, with large windows allowing natural light to enter. — “Nomad: Port to Port” exhibition by John Bailly at the Miami Beach Visual Arts Gallery of FIU MBUS

NOMAD: PORT TO PORT BY JOHN WILLIAM BAILLY
Essay by Colette G. Mello, Curator

Nomad: Port to Port presents a selection of paintings and drawings by John Bailly, created between 2011 and 2026. John Bailly is a nomadic flâneur, moving through cities with an observant eye and a heightened sensitivity to place, wandering, observing, and recording the visual rhythms of the environments he inhabits. Centered in the immediacy of the present moment, his work is nevertheless deeply informed by art history, architecture, and the natural environment.

While traveling internationally as a lecturer on cruise ships, Bailly uses time in each port to create in situ drawings of buildings, cityscapes, and surrounding landscapes. Working quickly in ink and pencil, he captures fleeting impressions of some of the world’s most significant architectural sites, from Vizcaya Museum and Gardens and Deering Estate in Miami to Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and Royal Palace of Madrid. Alongside these architectural studies, Bailly also turns his attention to South Florida’s fragile ecosystems, rendering delicate plant life with the same observational precision. These 25 drawings, produced while working between Miami, France, and ports across the globe, are executed with immediacy to capture the fleeting essence of each place. Though diminutive in scale, they possess a quiet monumentality, distilling iconic sites into intimate time-sensitive studies. Their economy of line and gesture invites close looking, offering viewers an intimate encounter with places often experienced as grand and distant.

In contrast, Bailly’s mixed media paintings are larger in scale and extend this dialogue, drawing on art historical references while engaging themes that resonate within today’s political and cultural climate. The painting Conquest, War, Famine and Death, inspired by a recent visit to Hong Kong, reflects this approach. Subtle visual connections, such as the treatment of clouds echo those found in his smaller drawings, revealing how these in situ works function as studies that inform and shape his larger compositions. Bailly’s practice exists in a dynamic exchange between the local and the global, positioning him not only as a traveler, but as an observer of the layered histories embedded in both the built and natural world.

Bailly is a Faculty Fellow at Florida International University, where he teaches in the Honors College. He received his MFA from Yale University and holds a BA in Art History from Florida International University.