CONTEXT | Art Miami 2025
DECEMBER 2-10 | ONE HERALD PLAZA | MIAMI FLORIDA
Exhibited annually at Context Art Miami—one of the most anticipated destinations for serious collectors entering the winter art season—this new installation by Zimmerman reflects the growing prestige and credibility of his presence within the American art market. The refined suite of paintings and sculptural works is unified by a luminous exploration of garden light, positioning Zimmerman as a consistently evolving voice whose booth has become a yearly point of interest for returning collectors.
A commanding large-scale canvas anchors the space, surrounded by smaller complementary works that echo its ornate wrought-iron motifs and shimmering chromatic surfaces. This structured arrangement reinforces the artist’s signature vocabulary while revealing new depth and technical nuance. At the center, a table of rugged, organically textured sculptures by Barton Perkins introduces a sculptural counterpoint, heightening the dialogue between atmospheric color and material presence.
Together, the works form a cohesive, immersive environment that not only showcases Zimmerman’s expanding sophistication but also reaffirms the exhibition’s reputation as a credible, must-visit highlight for discerning American collectors seeking early access to exclusive new work each year.
An event that Daniel Zimmerman has come to view as a significant milestone in his studio calendar—this new installation reflects not only the fair’s credibility within the American market but also Daniel’s growing connection to the collectors who return each year specifically to see how his practice has evolved. For many, his booth has become a quiet moment of anticipation: a place to witness the next chapter of an artist whose refinement and curiosity deepen with every new cycle of work.
This year’s presentation brings together a suite of paintings and sculptural works unified by Daniel’s ongoing fascination with the shifting luminosity of garden light. A commanding large-scale canvas, shaped by months of careful observation and material experimentation, anchors the space. Surrounding it are smaller works that echo his ornate wrought-iron motifs and shimmering chromatic surfaces—details that speak to his personal memories and evolving visual language.
At the center, a table of rugged, organically textured sculptures by Barton Perkins offers a grounding counterpoint, a collaboration Daniel chose intentionally to heighten the conversation between atmospheric color and material presence. The pairing reflects Daniel’s belief in creating environments rather than displays—immersive spaces where collectors can feel the sincerity of his process.
Together, these works form not just a cohesive installation, but a personal statement. They capture Daniel’s expanding technical sophistication while reinforcing Context Art Miami as a trusted annual stage where serious American collectors can engage with his most intimate and ambitious work of the year.
At the center of Daniel’s booth, a long, grounded table presents a striking grouping of ceramic works by Barton Perkins, forming a sculptural counterpoint to the surrounding paintings. Arranged in a loose procession, the vessels read as both individual objects and a collective installation, their varied heights, silhouettes, and surfaces creating a rhythmic progression across the tabletop. The ceramics anchor the space materially, drawing viewers inward before their gaze moves outward to the painted works on the walls.
Barton Perkins is an artist and ceramicist whose practice is deeply informed by both material inquiry and narrative thinking. His creative journey began as a studio art major at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he developed a sensitivity to form and process that continues to shape his work. He later earned an MFA in Creative Writing from American University, an experience that infuses his ceramics with a quiet sense of storytelling, each piece functioning less as a traditional vessel and more as a character or fragment within a larger, unfolding narrative.
The ceramic works on view are heavily worked, tactile, and richly surfaced. Thick accumulations of clay, glaze, and texture suggest a process of repeated handling, layering, and excavation. Glazes pool, crackle, and shift in tone from deep charred blacks and earthy browns to oxidized greens and metallic blues creating surfaces that feel geological, almost fossil-like. Subtle impressions and embedded patterns emerge through the material, rewarding close inspection and reinforcing the sense that these objects carry memory within their skin.
Perkins has pursued advanced ceramic study at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, where he expanded his technical range and explored more experimental approaches to form and surface. That balance between control and intuition is evident here: while the works retain the upright logic of vessels, their contours are irregular and expressive, resisting symmetry in favor of presence and weight. They feel simultaneously ancient and contemporary, functional in origin yet firmly sculptural in intent.
Beyond the studio, Perkins writes and illustrates comics, a practice that further informs the narrative sensibility embedded in his ceramic work. This cross-disciplinary approach brings an understated sense of humor, character, and pacing to the objects, positioning them as more than static forms. Within Daniel’s booth, Perkins’s ceramics establish a physical and conceptual dialogue with the paintings, uniting materiality, storytelling, and surface into a cohesive, immersive presentation.
