Elisa Turner is an award-winning art critic and art journalist. In April 2025, she and over 60 honorees were inducted into the 2025 Miami-Dade County Arts Hall of Fame. Her forthcoming book drawn from personal Miami Herald archives is Miami’s Art Boom: From Local Vision to International Presence, recording how the Miami art community evolved in pivotal years 1987 to 2007. It was published in October 2025 by University Press of Florida with generous support from the Knight Foundation. Supporting the creation of new material for this book, she received a 2024 MIA Artist Grant from Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and 2023 Ellies Creator Award from Oolite Arts. Her Miami Herald career began in 1986; from 1995 to 2007 she was the Herald’s primary art critic, with international assignments to Havana Biennial, Haiti, Venice Biennial, and Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland. Other awards: 2021 and 2020 First Place for Arts Commentary & Criticism and 2021 Second Place for Beat Reporting-Arts from South Florida Society of Professional Journalists, 2020 annual $50,000 Rabkin Prize, 2019 Leadership Award from Florida Chapter of ArtTable, and 2012 President’s Volunteer Service Award from Miami Dade College.
Her writing has appeared in Artburst Miami, Art+Auction, Arte Al Dia, ARTnews, Biscayne Times, Burnaway, Delicious Line, Fine Art Globe, Hamptons Art Hub, Hyperallergic, Florida International University ArtSpeak, and Miami Rail. She has taught writing at Miami Dade College and guest-lectured at University of Miami and New World School of the Arts. As Miami correspondent for ARTnews magazine, she has written reviews, news reports, feature stories, and profiles of prominent figures in Miami's art community. She has taken part in over 20 panel discussions in Miami venues concerning the visual arts as panelist or moderator. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics, U.S. Section, and ArtTable, a national organization for women in visual arts professions.
Book cover artwork above courtesy Carlos Betancourt.
Written Works
At Spinello Projects, Antonia Wright Pushes Back on Abortion Ban
Moca’s ‘Hamacas’ Exhibition Invites Visitors to Make Hammock, Use Hammock, Talk Immigration
Portraits that Honor the Men Who Participated in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike
Inter | Sectionality: Diaspora Art From the Creole City’: Compelling, Thought-Provoking, Timely
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara: Dispatches from Imprisoned Dissident Artist in Cuba
Wendy Wischer at Oolite Arts, Miami
“Diago: The Pasts of this Afro-Cuban Present’ Aims to Show How Past Inequities Remain in the Present
Surfside Resident and Design District Gallery Owner Takes Champlain Anniversary to Heart
William Cordova: Now’s the Time for His ‘New Type of Perspective’
"A captivating account of essays and writings that witness the exciting historical growth of Miami's arts community. It recounts the many artists, foundations, galleries, museums, and not-for-profit spaces that laid the groundwork for one of the most exciting and globally focused arts communities in the United States. The author's commitment and focus on the diversity of artists foreshadow the importance and influence of Latin American and Caribbean art and artists in the United States and highlight the African-diaspora artists community that called South Florida home."
—Jeremy Mikolajczak, Sybil Harrington Director and Chief Executive Officer, Phoenix Art Museum.
Advance praise for Miami's Art Boom: From Local Vision to International Presence by Elisa Turner
"There is no one who is more talented, perceptive, and knowledgeable than Elisa to portray this important and exciting era of Miami's cultural growth. This is a book that needs to be done--not only for the extraordinary value of Elisa's first-person chronicles of this era but also for conveying the wonderful and wild story that is Miami's astonishing growth in the visual arts. Elisa is the perfect person to chronicle decades of nonstop innovation and diversity that epitomized Miami's rise to join the ranks of leading cities in the arts." —Michael Spring, Director Emeritus of Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs.