Posted May 8, 2025

The Vero Beach Museum of Art announces the acquisition of three remarkable artworks, further strengthening its growing collection of American and global Contemporary art in mixed-media, photography, painting, and sculpture. These impressive additions include works by renowned and mid-career artists, all of whom are represented in numerous noteworthy public and private collections.

• Magenta, 2020, by British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor (b. 1954)
• Mermaid Cove, 2022, by American artist Bo Bartlett (b. 1955)
• QUIMBAYA (SACRED HOUSE), 2024, by Colombian artist Ana González (b. 1974)

“These acquisitions build on other recent VBMA acquisitions by acclaimed artists such as Refik Anadol, Jaume Plensa, and Wu Chi-Tsung, among others,” said Brady Roberts, VBMA Executive Director. “All three are stunning and will be signature works for VBMA.”

Acquired from the Lisson Gallery, Kapoor’s bold, immersive Magenta will serve as a cornerstone work for VBMA’s growing collection of modern and contemporary art. The concave stainless steel and lacquer sculpture was selected and purchased by the Museum’s Athena Society in April. “This acquisition is a significant addition to the museum’s permanent collection as it is the first piece to join the museum’s holdings that comes to life through interactive engagement with viewers. Its mirrored surface provides a literal reflection, while also encouraging deeper self-reflection,” notes VBMA Chief Curator Caitlin Swindell.

Mermaid Cove is an excellent example of Bartlett’s large-scale realist paintings, which draw influence from American Regionalism while incorporating a contemporary perspective. Bartlett depicts two women in a rowboat on a tranquil coastal inlet. Like many of his works, he creates a serene yet mysterious atmosphere, enhanced by a cinematic quality that invites deeper interpretation. The title Mermaid Cove evokes themes of myth and transformation, with a narrative that feels familiar and ambiguous, exploring the space between reality and the imaginary. The painting was purchased from the Miles McEnery Gallery by the VBMA through funds provided by an anonymous donor.

Ana González’s work, QUIMBAYA (SACRED HOUSE), explores themes of nature, indigenous heritage, and environmental conservation. For this piece, González photographed a tropical mountain forest in her native Colombia, where the forest meets the clouds. This location, like others she captures, holds cultural significance as it is the ancestral land of several indigenous groups, including the Quimbaya. She printed the image onto a roughened tarp that she altered by pulling apart thousands of individual threads. This approach reflects a major influence on her practice: the ideas of 18th-century German geographer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, whose work emphasized the deep interconnectedness of ecosystems, and that nature is a tissue of connected threads—when one thread is pulled, the entire fabric is affected.

The Vero Beach Museum of Art is one of Florida’s leading visual arts institutions. Its permanent collection of American and international art from the mid-19th century to the present includes significant works across numerous media. The Museum is one of the nation’s best-attended small museums, as distinguished in March 2025 research by Remuseum, an independent research project seeking to promote innovation among art museums across the United States.