The latest work from 11 leading mid-career artists are featured in “Fresh Arrivals” at ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in downtown Coral Gables.

Included are works by artists from Argentina, Colombia, Great Britain, Peru. Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the United States, all bound together with the common thread of a unique personal vision and professional presentation built upon a solid foundation of years of theoretical and practical study and experience.

Their other collective quality is that they were selected from the hundreds of applications received monthly by Virginia Miller, owner and director of the longest-established latin american art and contemporary fine arts gallery in Miami-Dade County.

“I see a lot of work, either from applications to be in the gallery or elsewhere,” Miller said. “I probably select one out of a thousand or more. I’m constantly looking for artists who have a new statement, or who have fine-tuned a traditional expression so well that it is uniquely their own.”

Latin american artist Linda Behar studied glass casting at two of the nation’s most renowned glass art studios, Pilchuk Glass School and Penland School of Craft as well as schools in her native Venezuela. Based on the concept of time, her new series consists of 32 boxes, each 5 1/2 inches square, incorporating her cast-glass elements.

Born in Arequipa, Peru in 1952, Ramiro Pareja Herrera has had dozens of group shows in Europe, South America, Canada and the U.S. as well as more than three dozen one-person exhibitions in Peru, Germany and Spain. A poet as well as a painter, his words embellish the borders of each of his canvases.

Represented in major collections in his native Argentina as well as Costa Rica, Latin America, Italy, Panama and Spain, Latin american artist Diego Linares’ work recently was added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California. He has participated in three dozen exhibitions at international art fairs, museums, galleries and public spaces since 1982.

One of South Florida’s leading art critics and authors, Ricardo Pau-Llosa, calls Latin american artist sculptor Melquíades “not only Puerto Rico’s most important contemporary sculptor --and one of the finest contemporary artists anywhere.” Known only by his first name, Melquíades has been awarded a Pollock & Krasner Foundation scholarship, among other awards, and last year held two simultaneous retrospectives: his early graphic works at the Museum of History, Anthropology and Art of Puerto Rico, and sculpture at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico.

British painter Graham Metson, whose gardens, jazz musicians and Asian women explode with passionate colors, has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States along with Great Britain, France and Germany, including a notable 1972 exhibit at the prestigious Institute of Contemporary Art in London.

A 20-year exploration into the refraction of color has led American painter Andy Moses to his astonishing paintings, which modify their hues with changes in light and the position of the viewer. Moses’ work has been widely exhibited in leading galleries in this country, chiefly in California and New York, as well as abroad.

Venezuelan artist Irene Pressner’s unique encaustic works are based upon the tattoos popular with American servicemen during WW II and historic comic-book characters. Recipient of several major awards in her native country, her work is included in museums there and in Israel and has been exhibited from Florida to New York and Spain.

The stone sculpture of Antoinette Prien Schultze may be found in permanent collections from Ohio to Maine. Her work, which often incorporates glass and other material with stone, has been exhibited in museums and top galleries in New York City, Florida, Illinois, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. One is on exhibit in the garden of the 2525 Ponce de Leon Building.

Since launching her career in 1996, Tremain Smith has compiled an impressive list of some six dozen solo and group exhibitions, garnered nine impressive awards and been acquired for such stellar permanent collections as that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The multi-dimensional effects of her mixed-media paintings are achieved by a multitude of techniques, including scratching, heating, ironing, adding collage elements, rubbing, drawing and oil glazes.

The abstract expressionism of Linda Touby is solidly based upon the disparities of “voluptuousness and reserve, sound and silence, endurance and fragility, motion and stasis, rigor and laughter.” Ranging from the tranquil to the explosively passionate, Touby’s abstractions have evolved from producing and exhibiting her popular works in leading galleries and museums from New York City to California, Washington, D.C. to Florida, as well as in Germany and Spain.

Latin american artist Marco Tulio, who is represented by two small figurative works as well as a five-foot representation of Madame Butterfly, learned to paint from his parents, both of whom were latin american artists. His lifelike figurative oils, often referential to famous characters in classical literature or operas, have been exhibited in his native Colombia, North America, Latin America and Spain.

A reception for the artists in “Fresh Arrivals” will be held from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, August 4th, at ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries. Located in the heart of the Coral Gables business district at 169 Madeira Avenue, the gallery is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. The exhibition will continue through October 31st. For more information, please call 305-444-4493.

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