M. Florine Démosthène
Biography
M. Florine Démosthène was born in the United States and raised between Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and New York. She earned her BFA from Parsons School for Design and her MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York. Démosthène has exhibited extensively across the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, the UK, and Africa, participating in both solo and group shows. She is the recipient of prestigious awards including a NYFA Artist Fellowship, the Wachtmeister Award, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, and has completed artist residencies in Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, the UK, and the United States.
Démosthène’s work explores Black female subjectivity, fantasy, and bodily autonomy through lush, mixed-media compositions that blend figuration with dreamlike abstraction. Her recent solo exhibitions include What The Body Carries at the Frist Art Museum, Nashville; Mastering the Dream at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; and In the Realm of Love at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Paris. She also presented The Stories I Tell Myself with Gallery 1957 in Accra and exhibited with Mariane Ibrahim Gallery at The Armory Show in New York.
Démosthène’s paintings and drawings are held in the collections of the National Museum for African American History and Culture, the Africa First Collection, the University of South Africa (UNISA), and the Lowe Museum of Art, among others. Through her vibrant and emotionally resonant practice, Démosthène offers a nuanced reimagining of identity, memory, and diasporic experience, making her a significant voice in contemporary art.