Baker-Hall is delighted to announce its participation in NADA New York, on view May 13-17 at the Starrett-Lehigh Building, Booth F6.
In alignment with the gallery’s core mission of supporting South Florida artists and a fiber-forward program, the presentation brings together two female, textile-based artists: Alissa Alfonso and Jen Clay. Alfonso was the first artist represented by the gallery, making this return to NADA with a new body of work especially meaningful. Clay is the most recent addition to the program, with an anticipated solo exhibition forthcoming this fall in Miami.
In her series Nature’s Medicine, Alfonso creates sculptural works from discarded fabric and repurposed found objects, highlighting both the abundance and waste of modern life.
Using textile remnants and hand-dyed fabrics, she evokes medicinal plants, fungi, and botanicals, each housed in planters sourced around Miami-often repurposed beach balls and other discarded objects-resulting in works that are both celebratory and sobering, reflecting on loss while honoring the enduring beauty of the natural world.
Clay’s new series Wild Dogs presents quilted textile works that draw from childhood memory, inherited language, and the emotional residue of loss. Constructed from her grandmother’s vintage bedsheets, the works embed fragments of remembered conversations into stitched, tactile surfaces, while puppet-like forms invite subtle interaction. Both playful and uneasy, the series transforms fear into companionship, giving form to grief through a sensory, materially rich approach that remains central to Clay’s practice.
Alissa Alfonso — About
Alissa Alfonso is a Miami-based artist whose multidisciplinary practice transforms everyday materials into meditations on ecology, memory, and care. Alfonso creates sculptural works that reimagine the natural world, working primarily with upcycled textiles, reclaimed objects, and hand-formed botanical elements. Her practice is rooted in the belief that the materials surrounding us—whether humble linens, discarded fabrics, or remnants of domestic life—carry histories that can be rewritten through acts of making.
Inspired by South Florida’s diverse ecosystems, Alfonso engages closely with native plants and medicinal species, translating their regenerative capacities into three-dimensional form. Her meticulously crafted flowers, herbs, and organic clusters embody the restorative qualities of nature, offering viewers a contemplative encounter with the environment. These works often reference practices of healing and nurturing, suggesting that creativity itself becomes a form of stewardship: a way of tending to both material and emotional landscapes.
Sustainability is foundational to Alfonso’s approach. She embraces materials that already exist in the world, choosing to work with textiles and found elements that arrive with their own lived histories. Through stitching, shaping, layering, and dyeing, she transforms these remnants into intricate sculptures that blur the line between the natural and the handmade. This slow, intentional process underscores the value of reuse and the beauty that emerges when objects are allowed to evolve beyond their original purpose.
Alfonso’s work is deeply informed by personal memory and the intergenerational knowledge passed down through family, gardens, and everyday rituals. Her sculptures reference the comfort of touch, the act of care embedded in craft traditions, and the emotional resonance of objects that accompany us through life. In this way, her pieces become small monuments—markers of growth, resilience, and the possibility of renewal.
Through exhibitions, public projects, and collaborations across Miami’s cultural landscape, Alfonso continues to expand the possibilities of sculptural practice. Her work invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and recognize the delicate systems that sustain life around us. By honoring both material histories and ecological wisdom, she offers a vision of art as a site of connection—between people, places, and the natural world that shapes us.
Jen Clay — About
Born in 1985 in Mountain View, NC, Jen Clay earned a BFA from UNC Charlotte and an MFA from the University of Florida in 2014 with a minor in costume design and applied behavioral analysis. Now based in South Florida, Clay creates sensory-inclusive textile works and installations created to be inclusive to neurodivergent, visually impaired, and anxiety-sensitive audiences. Jen Clay’s early interactive works were presented at Girls Club Collection, the Norton Museum of Art, MOCA North Miami, and Miami Light Box, including Welcome to You&Me (2019), an installation created for neurodiverse children.
Clay has completed residencies at Oolite Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. A short documentary about their work, The Texture of Anxiety, received a regional Emmy for its exploration of mental health through tactile art. In 2023, Clay received a Knight Arts New Work Award for a quilt-based video game and installation at Locust Projects that blended handmade textures with interactive storytelling.
Their permanent public artwork, commissioned through Miami-Dade Art in Public Places, was installed at Brisas del Este Apartments in 2022. Clay’s first solo exhibition at Emerson Dorsch, This World Doesn’t Belong to You (2023), featured quilted works with sewn messages created during the pandemic to address collectivenand personal anxiety and visitors were allowed to discover the sewn messages. Their interactive quilt Soft Night Watching is currently on view at the Ackland Art Museum through June 2026, inviting visitors to discover hidden messages through touch.
Most recently, Clay was an artist-in-residence at the McColl Center (January–April 2025) to create a soft-theature-like set that was shown at the Girls’Club Collection with programming that included a talk with Annie Hoffman called “Strange Days: Sensory Worlds and Mental Weather” explores mental health, sensory experiences, and the eerie threads that shape Jen’s work. This talk invites you to sit with uncertainty and reflect on what it means to be human in a world that often feels overwhelming and mysterious.. Across their practice, Clay uses textiles, softness, and storytelling to create accessible environments that offer comfort, imagination, and emotional connection. They live and work in South Florida and is represented by Baker-Hall gallery.
Baker—Hall is a contemporary art gallery founded by Amanda Baker—Hall in 2024. It is the successor to her previous project, Club Gallery. The gallery aims to promote emerging and mid-career artists through a fresh curatorial approach, while also offering comprehensive art advisory services. Baker—Hall specializes in painting and sculpture across narrative and non-objective styles, with a focus on collaborating with private collectors and prominent corporate institutions. The gallery boasts a robust exhibition schedule, featuring a minimum of eight rotating exhibitions each year.
Baker—Hall is a proud member of NADA.
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Miami, FL 33142
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