“A Cut Below”, 2000, Acrylic on canvas
Theo Wujcik’s painting, A Cut Below, is part of Tampa Museum of Art‘s All in Favor: New Works in the Permanent Collection, on view until 7/30/23.
Jul 272023
Jul 202023
Polly E. Perkins, “Woodstork Portrait”, 2022 from Ferman Center for the Arts
24 Hands is a printmaking collective of Florida Gulf Coast printmakers founded by Marjorie Greene Graff. The group has regular exhibitions throughout the year at various locations in the area.
Recently a group of their artists were showing work at The Ferman Center for the Arts, on the University of Tampa’s campus. Below are a few selections from that exhibition.
For more information on Polly E. Perkins, whose work is in the first image, check out her Instagram.
Linda Dee Guy, “Botanical Shroud”, 2021, acrylic, Inkjet print, Goldleaf on canvas
Linda Dee Guy, “Nucleus”, 2021
Linda Dee Guy, “Seascape”, 2021
For more work by Linda Dee Guy, check out her website and Instagram.
Serhat Tanyolacar, “Untitled”, 2020, Laser engraved relief print
Serhat Tanyolacar, “Untitled”, 2020, Laser engraved relief print
For more work by Serhat Tanyolacar, check out his website.
Ry McCullough, “Meditations in Orange”, 2021, Pochoir, serigraphy, gouache, watercolor, vinyl, gaffers tape on okawara
For more of Ry McCullough’s work, check out his website and Instagram.
Currently at Brooker Creek Preserve’s Education Center in Tarpon Springs is Nature Inspired, another exhibition of work by the 24 Hands collective.
From the exhibition-
For “Nature Inspired”, the artists visited Brooker Creek Preserve in March 2022 and March 2023 to strategize the exhibit and hike around the Preserve. Their love for Brooker Creek and nature has been inspiring and their work represents a variety of approaches from comical to realist to aesthetic abstraction. The exhibition includes prints by: Holly Bird, Saumitra Chandratreya, Tyrus Clutter, Elizabeth Coachman, Marjorie Greene Graff, Mary-Helen Horne, Stephen Littlefield, Ry McCullough, Polly E. Perkins, Christine Renc-Carter, and Rachel Stewart.
Below is work from the exhibition by Mary-Helen Horne. You can also find her work on Instagram.
Mary-Helen Horne, “Floating on Air”, 2023, Monoprint with drypoint, relief and pochoir
Nature Inspired has been extended until 8/13/23. It’s a great show and a chance to check out the natural surroundings that helped create the work.
Jun 292023
Judy Pickett is an Orlando based artist who often shows her work at Soft Water Gallery in St. Pete, Florida. Her beautiful cyanotypes are painted with encaustic to give them added texture.
Jun 212023
Center work by Laura De Valencia
Morean Arts Center in St. Pete, Florida, is currently showing Fresh Squeezed 7, their annual exhibition of emerging artists in Florida. It’s a great opportunity to see some of the best artwork being done by local artists. The exhibition closes 6/22/23.
From the the Morean Arts Center’s press release-
As always, our selection panel culled over 120 applications from across the state, narrowing the exhibition down to the six artists featured here. It’s always a joyful and heartbreaking process, seeing so much inspiring good work and only having a limited amount of space in which to show it all.We were looking for diversity in medium, in ideas, and in geographical location, all of which somehow comes together to form a delightful, cohesive whole.
While we don’t necessarily plan it that way, themes and commonalities do emerge among the artists selected for the exhibition. We’re happy to announce this is the first year that we have an ALL FEMALE line up. And due to the inclusive interpretation we use to define an emerging artist (no previous solo shows in Florida), you’ll find artists here who are still pursuing their MFAs (KJ Skidmore and Leeann Rae) AND artists who are returning to their first love of art after finding fulfillment in decades of other related careers (Latonya Hicks and Deborah W. Perlman).
Other themes you may notice as you peruse the galleries are the inventive (and exuberant!) use of materials. Denise Treizman and Latonya Hicks both incorporate cast off, recycled and vintage materials in their dimensional wall work. While Denise’s process is more spontaneous and Latonya’s is deliberate and measured, they both create joyful works of art that invite contemplation and perhaps a spark of recognition from the viewer.
KJ Skidmore and Laura De Valencia both deal with contemporary issues and pop culture in their work, though to wildly different effect. KJ’s humorous mixed media paintings address the notion of the male gaze, and the women who must endure it. Laura’s installations use fashion culture as a jumping off point to raise questions about international stereotypes and the borders (both visible and not) that immigrants have to experience on a daily basis.
Both Leeann Rae and Deborah W. Perlman create work that challenge the viewer to look longer, and to think deeper. With their disparate materials (Leeann with soft pastel and Deborah with cut paper), they raise notions of space, whether physical or mental, real or imagined, in the present or a memory from the past.
KJ Skidmore “Squeeze ‘n’ Block”, Acrylic and coffee
KJ Skidmore
KJ Skidmore “Angel’s Bar”, Acrylic, fabric, trim, paste and wood paper
The work above is by Tampa based artist KJ Skidmore.
Morean Arts Center’s information about the artist-
KJ’s current work is based in painting/drawing that extends into3-D space through multimedia installation. Her immersive spaces are chaotic and aggressive, but at the same time alluring. She works within her own bizarre and disjointed narratives and themes containing warped textual elements, strange cartoon characters, and color palettes that are both grimy and fluorescent. Her material use is variable and may include masses of hair clumped together with canned beets, pink stained carpet, fabrics, wood, plaster, teeth, rain jackets, and Smurf-themed objects.
KJ’s painted series Burger Time caricatures leering male clientele as flat, monster-like cartoons that interact with a staring waitress to explore gendered tropes and forms of voyeurism. This series reconstructs reality in relation to being female by presenting experiences like getting stared at or groped within a hokey themed attraction called “Burger Time” restaurant. Her series is meant to revolt the viewer through acknowledging the male gaze, while also celebrating its trashiness and the culture surrounding it. She uses humor to poke fun at this harmful and uneven power dynamic. The series presents this sickening concept through more palatable presentation such as expressive cartoon figures and bright colors.
KJ is from Gainesville, FL, but was living on the West Coast until recently. She is back in Florida pursuing an MFA at USF in Tampa.
For more of the artists in the show, continue to the next page.
Jun 162023
The latest pop-up exhibition at Chad Mize’s SPACE in St. Pete’s Warehouse Arts District, is Hot Box, which opened Friday 6/9/23. The show includes a LOT of artists and installations as well as, for this past weekend, an immersive performance by Dirty John’s comedy troupe.
Below are some of the works from the show-
Jay Hoff, “Criminally Divine”, Lego on Lego
Gianna Pergamo, “Pool Day”, Mixed Media
Miss Crit, “Love and Hisses” Acrylic on Wood
Rhys Meatyard, “Apollo, Artemis, Demeter”, Acrylic on wood
Macy Eats Paint (Macy Higgins), “Pieces of Me”, Mixed Media
In an upstairs section, artist Paul LeRoy has created a mixed media world of art world and celebrity icons, drawings, paintings and more.
The show will be open for its final weekend on Saturday 6/17 from 4-9pm and Sunday 6/18 from 11am-3pm.
Jun 162023
Paintings by Tiffany Snow
Work by Ride or Die Rod (left two paintings) and Zulu Painter
Work by Shereka Solomon
Green Book of Tampa Bay’s 3rd Annual Art Show -“Poetic Justice” at The Studio@620 was open to the public for June 2023’s ArtWalk in St. Pete.
In the back gallery were works by artist Dallas Jackson, which combine collage and painting- seen below.
Dallas Jackson, “Sharecropper”, 2018
Dallas Jackson, “Sharecropper”, 2018 (detail)
Dallas Jackson, “Journey to the Valley of Sin”, 2019
Dallas Jackson, “Journey to the Valley of Sin”, 2019 (detail)
This exhibition will be up until the end of June.
Jun 162023
There was a lot to see at last Saturday’s ArtWalk in St. Pete, Florida. Below is a brief roundup. Many of these artists and exhibitions can also be seen for the rest of the month (if not longer).
Above is ceramic work by Rebecca Stevens from her exhibition, The Good Life, at Morean Center for Clay. Her work is influenced by her experience as a ballet dancer, ancient Greek art, and by Art Nouveau.
Soft Water Gallery, part of the Arts Xchange in the Warehouse District is showing Abstract Visions, work by Steph Gimson.
Tommy Bayot’s exhibition Lines is on view at The Factory St. Pete, part of their Pride Month celebrations. The show will be on view until 7/2/23 and includes a variety of work, in addition to the abstract pieces below. Check out his Instagram for more.
The ArtLofts are located above Florida CraftArt Gallery and are currently showing John Gascot’s Sweet Boys.
John Gascot, “Underwater Romance”
The space also contains 19 artist studios. Below are works from two of the many artists.
Christine Di Staola’s “Atlas Compass 2” and “Atlas Compass 3”
Work by Mavis Gibson
The next ArtWalk in St. Pete will be on July 8th (second Saturday of the month).
May 262023
Dave DiMarchi’s Somatic Pause, located in Princeton, New Jersey during Winter/Spring of 2023.
From the Arts Council of Princeton about the mural and artist-
Fashioned after both the artist’s workspace and print editions he created during his Arts Council of Princeton’s Anne Reeves Artist-in-Residency, Somatic Pause invites Princeton to contemplate the transformational power of rest, and how time changes each of us.
Somatic Pause – a wheat-pasted, painted, and collaged installation – is an ephemeral one. Meant to change over time, the mural will be exposed to harsh winter weather, early spring rains, and glaring sun, each doing its own work to fade, soften, tear, and mar its surface.
Change is the constant.
And about the artist-
Dave DiMarchi is a queer, multi-disciplinary artist working in printmaking, papermaking and sculptural book forms. He engages in a relentless material practice, nurturing ideas into singular and editioned works. As a multi-disciplinary artist, he has exhibited works on paper, installations and books in the US and internationally. He maintains a small collaborative studio and art space in New Hope, Pennsylvania and teaches printmaking, papermaking and book forms extensively throughout the New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania area. In Fall of 2022, he was announced as the ACP Artist-in-Residence which will allow him to continue to explore collage-based multi-media and print works.
Since 2012, he has created his own work, curated exhibitions, provided print exchange opportunities, and published fine art prints as 9INHANDPRESS, a fine art printmaking and education studio located in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
Apr 282023
Installation by Molly A. Duff
Work by Trinity Oribio (left) and Manon VanScoder (videos on right)
Currently on view at The USF Contemporary Art Museum is SOMEDAY YOU’LL HAVE TO SAY IT OUT LOUD, an exhibition of eight students graduating with MFA degrees from the USF School of Art and Art History.
The artists included are Molly Duff, Kai Holyoke, Caitlin Nobilé, Trinity Oribio, Rachel Treide, Manon VanScoder, Alicia Watkinson, and Willow Wells.
For the artists’ statements about their work, as well as more information on the exhibition, the museum has produced this PDF.
The show will be on view until 5/6/2023.
Installation by Molly A. Duff, another view
Alicia Watkinson, “Notations in Passing II”, 2023, plywood, lightbulbs, ceramic bases, timers. Duration of light set daily according to the previous day’s activities and observations
Alicia Watkinson, “Notations in Passing II”, 2023 (detail)
Photo transfer on glass by Rachel Treide
Still from video by Rachel Treide
Caitlin Nobilé, “The gap in the door”, 2023 triptych, acrylic on wood
Willow Wells, “Whispers”, 2023, oil painting on panel
Trinidad Oribio “Untitled”, 2023 oil on canvas
Trinidad Oribio, “La Trinidad”, 2023, archival pigment print
Video installation by Manon VanScoder
Manon VanScoder, “each day is an endless scroll”, 2023
Kai Holyoke “Paradise Lakes”, 2023
Kai Holyoke “Paradise Lakes”, 2023
Apr 212023
“Cocteau and Table”, 2023,oil on archival inkjet printed canvas
“The Seasons Between”, 2023, oil on archival inkjet printed canvas
High Noon Gallery is currently showing Les Problémes du Confort, an exhibition of work by Mary Jones.
From the press release-
Jones began this most recent body of work, collectively called simply, “Interior Design,” by painting Sumi ink over the black and white printed pages of a comprehensive French Interior Design publication from the 1960s. “[I chose the series’ title] not only to underscore the attributes of the original images, but to address their psychological component: the topos of dreams, so notably analyzed by Gaston Bachelard and James Hillman, spaces we conjure to discover the elements of our inner lives. Homes and interiors are not only spaces we remember, but also labyrinths of symbolism, familiar to all of us as emotionally charged experiences,” she explains.
The addition of her signature mark making started as an exercise to identify patterns in the tonal pages, separate from the context of the imagery. It seemed to act as a compositional barometer of sorts, deflecting the space in certain areas and illuminating it in others. The painted catalog images were then collaged, blown up, printed on canvas, and painted again, further conflating space and gesture, and inhabiting the vacant interiors with a visible energy. In doing so, Jones satisfies the principles of high design with the paintings’ harmonic beauty, and also the open systems of fine art by positioning the work as cultural critique that challenges the colonialist motifs that permeate the aesthetic sensibility of many of the spaces.
Jones’s work has long gnawed at the malleability of subject matter. She consistently uses legible imagery to anchor her abstractions, prodding at the fickle divide between the two modalities. Her sensitivity to painting’s illusionistic properties is connected to her experience as a faux painter, freelance work she’s done for 25 years. While the object of faux painting is to not let the artist’s hand show, Jones riffs on her craft by skillfully merging gesture and image in ways that are largely indistinguishable. She allows the marks to emulate form and object, playing on the viewer’s expectations of pictorial logic and slyly addressing the disparity between fine art and design, as for many decades— and especially during painting’s theoretical heyday in the second half of the 20th century— they shared a tenuous opposition. Design is associated with expense, and American society is perpetually transfixed by the Romantic notion of the artist as a working class hero.
Ionic Memories (2023), depicts a decadent room steeped in Roman busts and columns, the title a tongue-in-cheek reference to the science of memory and the unstable nature of artistic movements and empires alike. Jones echoes the velvety matte blacks of the printed image in her direct painting gestures, mixing a near perfect replica of the tone and texture for her to set up a meta tromp-l’oeil effect. In the foreground, a collaged brush stroke swipes away at the interior revealing a snowy landscape wherein a bush and modernist cabin are obscured by a swath of pink oil paint. In the context of the whole, the landscape reads as decorative forms within the room, such as fan coral and glass spheres. Other works such as Cocteau and Table (2023) make greater use of a fragmented effect wherein decisively multiversal looking forms cut through the composition like a glimpse into a parallel reality. Through a mix of painterly and faux elements, Jones takes care to merge her augmented realities just enough to allow the viewer to believe the image exists in one picture plane.
Perhaps to be comfortable is to momentarily resist time, to be temporarily impervious to the clamors for change. In Les Problémes du Confort, Jones reminds us that the arrangements we make with ourselves are transitory, constructed illusions to describe and reflect a sense of our place in the world we know, and that improvisational beauty can be found in transitions, in languages we don’t know, and in uncertainty.
This exhibition closes 4/23/23.