About

Bio
Sharon Lee Hart is a South Florida-based artist whose practice engages place through experimental photographic processes. Working across photography, mixed media, and artist books, she examines complex living environments and maintains a collaboration, Hart/Vargas, rooted in visual dialogue. Alongside her studio practice, Hart is an Associate Professor of Art at Florida Atlantic University.

Her artist residencies include Joshua Tree National Park (Joshua Tree, CA), Oak Spring Garden Foundation (Upperville, VA), and The Studios of Key West (Key West, FL). Hart was awarded the 2025 Distinguished Woman Artist’s Prize from the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County and the 2023 SECAC Artist’s Fellowship Award. Her work has been featured in exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad and is held in several permanent collections, including the King County Public Art Collection (Seattle, WA) and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO).

Statement
Centering nature as subject and catalyst, my individual practice is rooted in southern coastal and cultivated ecologies, using experimental photographic methods to deepen a connection to place and remain attentive to environmental change. My work unfolds gradually through material processes and close observation of layered living environments. I make photograms directly in the sea, create anthotypes whose fading mirrors the vulnerability of the species they depict, and photograph coastal plants at night through approaches that move between portraiture, field study, and intervention. The work develops in response to the heightened presence of living forms, shifting conditions of the landscape, and the behavior of light-sensitive materials.

My collaborative photo-based mixed-media practice, Hart/Vargas, develops through repeated exchange, allowing works to evolve, pause, and re-enter the conversation over time. In our ongoing project, far becomes near, materials and images are altered, combined, and returned to one another as our distinct visual languages merge into something new. We cut, obscure, layer, and adhere fragments to create transitional spaces that conjure memory, domesticity, and the super/natural world. The process requires intuition and trust, with each work becoming a resolved pause within a continuing conversation.