Miami’s tropical impressionist, Magnus Sodamin, finds inspiration in the Everglades
No matter where you are in South Florida, it’s never that far from the Everglades. Yet it takes someone like painter Magnus Sodamin to capture the famous ecosystem at its peak of beauty.
“Before Sunrise,” an exhibition of the artist’s work at the Faena Art Project Room, showcases the Everglades in glorious detail. In a series of large-scale landscapes, Sodamin beautifully depicts the famously spectacular sunrises and sunsets that regularly set the South Florida skies afire with color.
Landscapes are paired with equally vivid portraits of various local flora and fauna. Spoonbills and ibises point their bills romantically toward the crescent moon. Conch shells rest on richly textured ground. Dragonflies dance above the reeds against a burning sky.
“I think that this kind of this body of work kind of relates to my relationship with Florida Bay and the Everglades,” says Sodamin. “I’ve spent over a decade exploring that whole wilderness, and I’ve grown a personal connection to it.”
There’s a clear art-historical precedent to these luminous paintings, one that even Sodamin is quick to admit. They’re impressionist paintings, reminiscent of Monet, Van Gogh, and their contemporaries, as well as predecessors like J.M.W. Turner. Much like the British artist, Sodamin similarly explores light in his work.
“I do find my language, the way I use the brush, to be kind of in an impressionistic vein. I feel like there’s a lot of movement and layering within my work. There’s density to it. There’s these abstract qualities. When you’re up close you can kind of get lost in just the mark making and the paint, but once you’re far away it comes together in this landscape that has depth.”
Much like the original impressionists, Sodamin spends much time outdoors, frequently venturing into the Everglades and Florida Bay to fish, camp, and paint. Sometimes he’ll go out on the water for 12 hours, losing track of time and allowing himself to enter a meditative state. Even during the sweltering summer months, when humidity can approach 100 percent and temperatures occasionally enter the triple digits, he heads outdoors. That’s when he made most of the work that comprises the show.
“You’re sweating out of every pore of your body, (and) to make it through that, I think, shows how much I love to be in that moment. And then the reward is all these things you experience, these sunsets and sunrises, the harmony you find in nature.”
Though he does work in the studio and from photos, much of his practice involves the same kind of plein air painting that the impressionists made a major element of their style. Other than the Everglades, he’s also painted in other famous locations; a paddling trip down the Grand Canyon in 2024 yielded 14 paintings over 21 days.
I think plein air teaches you more than you could ever learn in your studio,” he says. “There’s this kind of all or nothing approach where you just have to capture that moment before it’s gone.”
Originally from New York, Sodamin is a longtime Miami transplant. He arrived in the city in 1998 and studied at the New World School of the Arts. Though he’s lived and worked in other regions, including his mother’s native Norway, the landscape of the Everglades keeps drawing him back.
“For me, it’s important to show people that this is what exists here. It’s not that far away. These are environments that have been around for thousands of years, the animals in my paintings have been in this landscape for a long time too, and we’re kind of new here.”
If you go:
WHAT: “Magnus Sodamin: Before Sunrise”
WHERE: Faena Art Project Room, 3420 Collins Ave., Miami Beach
WHEN: 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Through Wednesday, April 30
COST: Free
INFORMATION: faenaart.org
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