Front Photo by Dasha Gavrylova: "Eating Tossed Salad from My Own Back Yard," August 2007, Roswell New Mexico. Inside photos by J. Kiku Langford from Flo's I ♥ Agrisculpture exhibition at AVA Gallery and Art Center, August 2009

Flo McGarrell

Rome, Italy 31 August 1974 - Jacmel, Haiti 12 January 2010

An Exuberant Life

On January 12, 2010, the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti reverberated to the Upper Valley with the tragic death of thirty-five-year-old artist Flo McGarrell. Flo had just returned to Haiti from Newbury, Vermont, the home of his parents, Ann and James McGarrell. A memorial exhibition of works by Flo McGarrell and his friends and family will be on view at AVA Gallery and Art Center from June 18 - July 14, 2010. A reception and poetry reading, free and open to the public, will take place on Friday, June 18, from 5 to 7pm.

Born in Rome, Italy to a painter father and poet mother, Flo McGarrell grew up as a free-spirited and adventurous child, destined to become an edgy and influential artist and individual. Flo received a BFA in Fibers and an MA in Digital Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He also received an MFA in Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In his earlier work, Flo used his hybrid skills in sculpture and digital craft to create architectural-scaled inflatable sculptures. He was also producer and art director of the film "Maggots and Men," and, in December 2009, just finished shooting footage for a new film, "Kathy Goes to Haiti," with co-director Cary Cronenwett and co-producer Laura Teodosio. He was living in Jacmel, Haiti as Director of the non-profit art center, Fondasyon Sant D'A Jackmel (FOSAJ).

Last August, Flo had an exhibition at AVA Gallery and Art Center called I ? Agrisculpture. Several pieces included living plants that bore peppers and tomatoes throughout the gallery spaces. Despite the tomato blight of 2009, his plants bore luscious fruits that were a delicacy for gallery visitors. His colorful "Hanging Gardens of Lebanon," - as Valley News reviewer Alex Hanson so poignantly coined Flo's display - were made of recycled plastic laundry detergent jugs converted into planters. Flo and AVA's Exhibition Coordinator, Kiku Langford, had just begun to develop plans that would make FOSAJ and AVA sister organizations. In fall 2009, AVA sent him back to Haiti with rolls of canvas, oil paints, brushes, drawing materials and paper.

For this memorial exhibition, the "Hanging Gardens of Lebanon" will return to AVA, having been restored and resurrected by artist Michael Heffernan of Newbury, VT. Several other works by the late Flo McGarrell - such as his large inflatable television/dance room, both of his films and documentation of earlier performance pieces - will be revived by close friends including Laura Teodosio, Brian Stansbury, Susan Frame, Cary Cronenwett, Raïssa Venables, Melissa Webb, Olivia Robinson and Daniel Jolicoeur. Also on display will be several pieces created by Flo's friends and family in celebration of his life and work. These will include a new four-panel painting and an eight-panel bronze relief sculpture by Flo's father, James McGarrell, drawings of Flo by Mimi Gross, and works in a variety of media by Barnaby Fitzgerald, Susan Frame, Brian Stansbury, Susan Marie Dopp, Weronika Zaluska, Dasha Gavrylova, Claudel (Zaka) Chery, Jack Beal, Dorris Frame, Mary Katherine Doyle, Max Kozloff, Jessica Leeder, Phyllis Arbesman Berger, Ivy McClelland and others. Photographs by Julie Dermansky of post-earthquake Haiti, including portraits of FOSAJ artists and Lakou performers with whom McGarrell worked closely, will also be on display along with gorgeous Haitian Voudun drapo, courtesy of Marilyn Houlberg, Flo's mentor from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Several poems and writings in response to the tragedy will be available for gallery visitors to read. As with much of Flo's work, many of the displays will be highly-collaborative installations, videos and slideshows commemorating and honoring this artist, inventor, teacher, friend, lover, daughter, son.

You can Download a PDF of this press release here.