You have just a week to see the groundbreaking Outside In exhibit at The Dalí Museum, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the SHINE St. Petersburg Mural Festival. I’ve been thinking about the show since I drove up for the opening weekend back in May, part birthday getaway, and part excuse to catch up with an old artist friend, Nicole Salgar, who was among thirteen artists selected to paint a mural for the exhibit. The Miami native’s move north mirrors a growing exodus of local talent seeking support beyond the city that helped shape them.
A couple days after the opening, I caught up with Nicole to discuss her experience with the show and, more broadly, her decision to leave her hometown and how it has impacted her life and career. “I’m getting so much praise and support outside of Miami,” she said, reflecting somewhat wistfully on her December 2023 relocation. In less than a year, she’s felt a dramatic shift in both commercial and communal support. She hasn’t forgotten her hometown, but she has mixed feelings when she does get contacted about work back home, “I’ll have friends or clients wanting to see my work, and it feels like I have no real presence there anymore. And it made me super sad to accept that fact.”
Salgar’s artistic evolution began far from the streets, rooted in fashion design from a young age. After graduating from Design & Architecture Senior High in 1999, she earned her bachelor’s degree from New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, specializing in tailoring. For seven years, she created designs for Ralph Lauren and other major fashion brands, but the work lacked the fulfillment and community impact she craved. The turning point came in 2013 with her first mural, a collaboration with Chuck Berrett for The Centre-Fuge Public Art Project in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “I got amped by the feedback from the community as I was painting,” she recalls. Conversations with muralists Damien Mitchell and Phetus opened her eyes to the possibility of making a living through public art. The early momentum of her mural career collided with tragedy the following year, when the death of her brother Louis brought her back to Miami. Painting became both expression and therapy as she immersed herself in the local art and music scene, finding support through the hospitality industry that her brother had been part of. That network led to early paid opportunities, work that showcased her evolving skills and helped her build a reputation.
Through artist residencies and mural festivals, Salgar’s work soon appeared on walls across Israel, Mexico, Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. That global recognition underscored a painful contrast with her experience back home. “Why am I fighting this?” she wondered, seeing consistent municipal funding flow to artists in other cities while Miami’s support remained inconsistent. Her story reflects a larger crisis as cuts to public arts funding at every level push creators to seek opportunities far from home. While artists have historically migrated to cultural centers, today’s displacement feels different, driven less by ambition than by rising costs and institutional neglect. Miami, despite its reputation as a cultural hub, exemplifies this issue perfectly: rapid development and soaring rents have priced out many working artists, even as the appetite for public art grows.
Nicole’s story represents the bigger picture of a disintegrating artist community, a canary in the coal mine for what’s happening nationwide. Adding to the frustration is Miami’s obsession with “imported cool.” Visiting artists and out-of-town collectives are often courted with premium rates and splashy press, while locals get nickel-and-dimed for projects in their own backyard. It’s a dynamic that turns cultural identity into currency; one that artists like Salgar, who built her career from the ground up, have spent years navigating. Even from St. Pete, she still sees herself as part of Miami’s fabric, but her story is a reminder that loyalty alone can’t sustain a creative community when the math no longer works.
For those who stay, the grind looks different. Miami’s “working-class” artists, the ones who live off commissions, freelance gigs, and side hustles, operate largely outside the institutional bubble. They build their careers through social media, word of mouth, and relentless hustle, while the same small roster of names keeps cycling through the city’s grants, residencies, and museum-backed projects. Here, success often depends less on impact than on the right kind of visibility. Having the right people say your name in the right rooms, or checking the right boxes on paper so that an institution can show they are “doing the right thing” for their donors. It’s a system that rewards optics over community roots, leaving little space for the next generation of artists coming up behind them.
The Dalí Museum’s Outside In exhibition, curated by Associate Curator Allison McCarthy, brings together current and past SHINE artists to create murals inspired by Dalí’s surrealism within the museum’s iconic walls. For Salgar, it represents more than a career milestone, “The timing and element of validation that an institution of that caliber is presenting contemporary mural artists within their walls” carries special weight, she says, especially as arts funding faces cuts nationwide.
The show underscores how major institutions can bridge high art and community engagement. By housing murals alongside Dalí’s masterpieces, the museum elevates the medium beyond trend status and demonstrates how public art can attract both private and public support while still feeling accessible. “People interacting with passersby, people who live and are directly impacted by the finished work, get to participate in its making,” Salgar explains. That human connection, the dialogue between artist and community, remains the heartbeat of her practice.
SHINE’s success proves what sustained investment in public art can do: since 2015, the festival has installed more than 180 murals, revitalizing downtown St. Petersburg and nurturing a supportive ecosystem where artists can thrive. But Salgar’s experience also underscores a larger challenge: creating systems that nurture local talent instead of pushing it out. Outside In, on view through October 26, 2025, offers a glimpse of what that future might look like, with immersive programs and AI-powered components redefining how museums connect with their communities.
For Salgar, whose work now hangs steps away from Dalí’s own, the moment is both personal and symbolic. It’s proof that street art belongs inside museums… and that institutions can help sustain artists without stripping their work of authenticity. “Ride this wave,” Salgar tells emerging artists, describing what she calls “redirection” rather than rejection. The idea that closed doors can push you toward better ones. For her, that meant leaving Miami when the support wasn’t there and embracing the opportunities that were. “It’s not about giving up,” she adds, “it’s about trusting that the right place will meet you halfway.” Nicole’s journey from Miami fashion design student to internationally recognized muralist shows how resilience and community can thrive with support and recognition. For Miami, still struggling to hold onto its artists, her story is both cautionary tale and call to action.
Photo by Joey Clay.
