Nov 282023
 

Lisa McCarthy “Joy Ride”, 2023, mixed media on paper (left) and Georgia Vahue, “Peacock”, 2023, mixed media

(clockwise from upper left) Georgia Vahue “Isn’t it Romantic”, 2022-3 mixed media; Lisa McCarthy “Awkward Attachment”, 2023, mixed media on canvas; Georgia Vahue “Time to Finish My Hand”, 2023, mixed media; Lisa McCarthy “Shot Gun”, 2023, mixed media on paper

Lisa McCarthy “All the books I bought and never read”, 2023, mixed media on paper (left) and Georgia Vahue “Turquoise”, 2023, mixed media and “Las Vegas”, 2023, mixed media

Clockwise from left- Georgia Vahue’s mixed media works- “Felicitations” 2023, “Travel Log”, 2023 and “Robert Browning”, 2023

Currently on view at HCCFL’s Gallery 221, located on their Dale Mabry campus, is Leftovers- assemblages by Georgia Vahue and mixed media paintings by Lisa McCarthy.

From the artists about the exhibition-

Things that are “left over” in our lives speak to our priorities. Regardless of their composition, the fact that something remains after a time can elicit strong reactions of nostalgia or urgency. Whether they are collectibles, old books, identities, leftover meals, or simple mementos, these things can be prized just as easily as they can be neglected. Even though tastes and perceptions change over time, we find ourselves drawn to the past for novelties and material to create with something new.

Leftovers are a loaded source, full of possibility and untapped potential. Their hold on us can remain for one second, a minute, an hour, day, or century. As leftover items sit, hide, or are abandoned for whatever reason, they mature into something else. In the context of art, the act of examining these elements closer, again and again, makes the artist aware of qualities one did not see or appreciate beforehand. Only with this careful attention can we help these leftovers transition into the future.

Although very different in medium, the works play off each other well, creating interesting conversations between the pieces. McCarthy has even created drawings on the pedestals based on objects and elements from Vahue’s work.

The closing reception for the exhibition on Thursday (11/30/23) will include an artist talk beginning at 6pm.

Below are additional paintings by McCarthy including the incredibly detailed wall length mural.

Lisa McCarthy “Enter Here”, 2022, mixed media on mylar

Lisa McCarthy “Enter Here”, 2022, mixed media on mylar (detail)

Lisa McCarthy, “Bon Marché”, 2023, mixed media on paper

Lisa McCarthy “Passers by the window”, 2023, oil and acrylic on canvas

Oct 202023
 

Currently on view at Hillsborough Community College’s Gallery 114 in Ybor City is Ya La’Ford’s solo exhibition HENGE- unearthing ancestral memory. The exhibition includes the sculptures seen above as well as several prints. The geometric work taps into universal themes of cross cultural connectivity through form.

From the gallery about the artist and the exhibition-

Ya La’ford (b. 1979, Bronx, NY) is an internationally recognized multimedia artist whose bold, geometric work explores themes of transformation and transcendence. Her solo exhibition HENGE – unearthing ancestral memory in Gallery114@HCC invites viewers to reconsider symbols from ancient civilizations as keys for navigating the shapes and patterns of modern life. Concepts such as connection, excavation, reverence and memory are woven together for an immersive and multi-sensory installation. Inspired by forms such as Neolithic henges, kivas, and other ancient architectural monuments, these new works by La’ford investigate ancestral messages and reimagines them for contemporary audiences.

The prints, seen above, strike an intriguing balance with their delicacy to the more solid forms of the sculptures.

About the prints from the gallery-

Many numbers have symbolic associations. For example, sets of three can sometimes indicate cycles of time, such as past, present, and future.

The prints included in HENGE are titled in a series as Seven שבע. In ancient near eastern and Israelite culture, the number seven can be used to communicate a sense of fullness or completeness (שבע “seven” is spelled with the same consonants as the word שבע “complete/full). The number seven can also be associated with intuition, wisdom, spiritual revelations, a growing self-awareness, or upcoming shifts that may have a positive impact on one’s life.

This exhibition is on view until 11/2?23.

Oct 072023
 

Emiliano Settecasi, “Baby Blue Blowers”, 2023, faux fur, metallic fringe, box fans, wood

Jessica Caldas, “I come honouring your power (Clytemnestra)”, 2023, house linens, poly fiber fill, house patterned quilt, fabricated structures from gifted furniture, fabric wallpaper, found and embellished light fixture

Saumitra Chandratreya, “Throne”, 2022, Cyanotype on sateen, hand embroidery

Touchy/Feely at Hillsborough Community College’s Gallery 221 in Tampa has a lot of great interactive (and non-interactive work) on view. The three artists in the exhibition- Jessica Caldas, Saumitra Chandratreya, and Emiliano Settecasi– have contributed work that explores important themes while also adding an element of fun by allowing the viewer to become actively involved in the show.

The Curatorial Statement by Alyssa Miller-

Art touches you, and sometimes you get to touch it back. Challenging conventional gallery manners, Touchy/Feely encourages visitors to assume the role of participant by handling and manipulating several of the works on view. Contemporary fiber artists disrupt the long-held distinction between art and craft, blending the conceptual with the experiential in a highly tactile medium. In Touchy/Feely, artists Jessica Caldas, Saumitra Chandratreya, and Emiliano Settecasi go one step further in collapsing the space between artist and viewer, exploring themes of labor, motherhood, relationships, conscious choice, and joy through fiber art that both holds and is held.

So much of art and history is exhibited at a distance, close enough to see but never touch. Whereas engaging with the nature of textiles can be familiar, exciting, and sensational. Combinations of art and cloth have a long and fraught history within contemporary art, such as the novelty of interactive exhibitions that can become a commodity in contemporary museums. Ogled and beaten become the play spaces, tarnished and brassy the sculptures, worn and bruised the forms become overtime through the nature of interaction. Touchy/Feely aims to be a space in between museum rules and contemporary art photo-ops. Here, artists display a mix of interactive and static artwork that exemplifies intense feeling, encouraging the viewer to make decisions in real time, and submerge themselves in something they did not expect.

Ultimately, this exhibition satisfies my urge to explore, manipulate, caress, and experience art in a way not many individuals are able to do. In working behind the scenes, I am allowed to safely satisfy my interest in exploration. I will forever be grateful to the HCC Art Galleries team for their dedication to students, staff, and artists for this exhibition and the work they do year-round. I hope that visitors come away from this exhibition with a new experience, perspective, feeling, or sensation.

This exhibition closes on 10/12/23.

Jessica Caldas, “A name can be in a lot of places at once (Helen)”, 2023, house linens, crochet, fabricated structures from gifted furniture, polymer clay, yarn, polyfiber fill, fake pearls, and ceramic

Emiliano Settecasi, “Neon Green Furry Shelf”, 2023, faux fur, plywood, metal brackets; “Hand Bags (Purple)”, 2023 velvet Velour, polypropylene pellets; “Inman Ottoman”, 2023, ottoman reupholstered with vintage fabric that matches family chairs; Hand Bags (Merlot), 2023

Jun 222023
 

“North Tower”, 2021, mixed media on canvas

“North Tower” detail

“South Tower”, 2023 mixed media on canvas

Paintings created from zoomed-in sections of the underpaintings of the larger works

“Memories”, 2023, digital photographs

“Memories”, 2023, digital photographs (closer look)

Gallery 221, at Hillsborough Community College’s Dale Mabry Campus, is currently showing Snow in September, an exhibition of work by Kirk Ke Wang. The layered mixed media works are really pretty but there is a deeper meaning within the details.

From the gallery about the exhibition-

Kirk Ke Wang (b. Shanghai, China) is a multimedia artist whose work focuses on critiquing modern stereotypes as a diaspora. Throughout his career, Wang has used painting, installation, mixed media, video and photography to present his vision of the world, led by a consistent thread: the fear of inexorable cataclysm.

Wang’s solo exhibition in Gallery221@HCC draws inspiration from a 13th century Chinese play called The Injustice to Dou E, also known as Snow in Midsummer. In the story, the tragic and unjust death of Lady Dou E causes the heavens to snow during a hot midsummer day, thereby proving her innocence.

Today, the story symbolizes injustice and tragedy, and in Wang’s exhibition Snow in September, the artist parallels the Chinese fable with abstracted images of more recent tragedies such as 9/11, calling to mind the moment when the twin towers collapsed, and debris rained down like falling snow.

Through retelling tragedies, Wang tries to find a spiritual solace and the meaningfulness of being human.

This exhibition closes 6/22/23.

Jun 212023
 

These days it’s hard not to think sometimes about the end of the world. But have you started putting together a plan? Thought about who would be good in a crisis? Put together a pros and cons list of your friends, family and acquaintances?  Wondered if things would actually be better?

Finn Schult’s current exhibition Everything You’ve Ever Wanted at Gallery 114 at Hillsborough Community College’s Ybor City location, presents an interesting take on the current state of things for those with the end on their minds.  It includes paintings, animal traps, an ipod and walkie talkie, as well as a book containing photos, prepper information, journal entries, drawings, and some pros and cons for the people in his life, including his mom. The paintings are titled “L’appel Du Vide” a French phrase meaning “the call of the void” or the urge to jump when you are standing in a high place.

From the gallery’s website-

Everything You’ve Ever Wanted is a solo exhibition of new work by Finn Schult (b. 1993, Naples, FL) reflecting on the inevitability of the end of the world and the fantasy of apocalypse as catalyst for utopia. Schult’s multimedia series exists as fragments, sketches and interludes distilled from an otherwise deranged web of theories. At times, the artworks presented in Gallery114@HCC feel terroristic, violent and unbearably bleak–at other times, they remind us of the beauty inherent in loss, longing and love. Schult’s work yearns for a world that doesn’t yet exist and mourns for a world that isn’t yet gone, answering the cry, “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” with “The only way out is through.”

There is also a video in the exhibition, Where r u rn? which mixes a variety of imagery with a bit of author and mystic Terence McKenna’s 1999 final interview where he discusses “the fire in the madhouse at the end of time”- the possibility of the craziness in the world being a sign of the dying of our species.

This exhibition closes on 6/22/23.

Feb 042023
 

Le’Andra LeSeur, “In Reverence (An Honoring)”, 2019

Le’Andra LeSeur, “There are other hues of blue”, 2019-2022 (ongoing)

Le’Andra LeSeur, “There are other hues of blue”, 2019-2022 (ongoing)

Le’Andra LeSeur, “The CD Man”, 2017

Le’Andra LeSeur, “Superwoman”, 2018

Spirit, Rhythm, BluesLe’Andra LeSeur’s exhibition at Gallery221@HCC Dale Mabry Campus is a multimedia exploration of life, death, and rebirth- all bathed in blue.

From the Gallery 221 website-

LeSeur’s body of work—a celebration of Blackness, queerness, and femininity—seeks to dismantle systems of power and achieve transcendence and liberation through perseverance. In “Spirit, Rhythm, Blues” at Gallery221@HCC, LeSeur’s installation encourages viewers to contemplate themes such as identity, family, grief and joy, the experience of invisibility, and the power of language.

From the Gallery 221 press release description of Superwoman

This video is a documentation of a self-baptism that took place in the summer of 2018. The work speaks to the cyclical process of the emotional “waves”- highs and lows- experienced in life. As LeSeur conducts the baptism Donny Hathaway’s rendition of Superwoman plays over the visual, and the words “Where were you when I needed you last winter” repeat as the video proceeds then visually plays out in reverse. The words in the song symbolize the internal struggle present when asking how we show up for ourselves during moments of transition and change. Instead of putting pressure on ourselves to be better or do better, those words bring us back to a place of understanding the importance of self-love in how we overcome and get back to a place of grounding and balance in our lives.

It is a moving piece and works well as a balance to the other video works that reference the police killings of Akai Gurley and Alton Sterling (The CD Man, 2017, pictured above).

This exhibition is on view until 3/2/23.