"The Secret Reef" Collage

Valerie Perreault is a visual artist and poet. Born into a military family in New Jersey, she grew up in Wisconsin and Illinois. She graduated from the Art Institute, worked in Austin and Boston, lived some years aboard a sailboat, and has settled in the Florida Keys.

In 2016, while living aboard her sailboat on an island just north of Key West she opened a small art gallery in a sandy wood shack about 100 steps from the ocean. It was called Portside Gallery (she's left handed and the port side is the left side of a boat). It was there that she began selling her block prints to locals and lost tourists. She sold the gallery in 2020 but her art continues to grow and lives on in private collections across the globe.

Her work has been featured in GOOP, Hia Magazine, Buzzfeed and PBS Art Loft, among others. She also has permanent installations in high-end resorts and public spaces including The South Beach Ritz Carlton, Tommie Austin, Intercontinental Miami, Casa Marina Resort Key West, Hotel St. Elm, Hawks Cay Resort, the Port of San Diego, Parkline Miami, and on Royal Caribbean's, Star of the Seas. Also, about two times a year, she shows her new works at art galleries.

The old Portside shack is still there, and owned now by a friend who carries and sells her work for returning vacationers who want to rediscover the secret gem in the palm trees.

Perreault is the winner of the 2024 Richard Snyder Prize in Poetry and her book, Neon Pastoral, will be published in late 2025.