Dec 072023
 

Lilian Butler, “Wave of Emotion”, Drawing

Lilian Butler, “The Value of Grey Thinking”, Drawing

Currently on view at Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art in Tarpon Springs is Visual Metaphors, an exhibition of impressive work created by Pinellas County public high school students. Hopefully this is just the beginning for these young, talented artists.

From the museum-

Presented in partnership with Pinellas County Schools (PCS), this exhibition presents a selection of two- dimensional and three-dimensional work from public high school students in grades 9-12. Like its namesake, Visual Metaphors are comparisons used to create a heightened awareness or emotional connection to a statement, a figure of speech, or condition. Think “raining cats and dogs,” “rollercoaster of emotions,” or “tongue in cheek.” A visual metaphor represents a person, place, thing, or idea by means of an image that shows a particular association or similarity. The students asked themselves “How will I convey a visual metaphor through my art? Will I illustrate a metaphor that is part of everyday speech, a cliché, a poem, or a lyric? Are there seemingly unexpected images that I can combine to create a metaphor? Will the metaphor be humorous, subtle, or overt?”

Now on view at the Leepa Rattner Museum of Art (LRMA) for the first time, this installation of Visual Metaphors is a continuation of an exhibition series, which was previously hosted at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, for the last thirty years. LRMA is proud to continue our partnership with PCS, as well as showcase the incredible talent that makes up our student communities.

This show will be on view until 12/10/23. Below are a few more selections.

Jonah Williams, “Life’s But A Walking Shadow”, Photography

Asalyn Schrotenboer, “Hands On”, Painting

Siena Van Beynen, “Handle With Care”, Sculpture

Emily Delucia, “At The Center of A Web”, Digital Art

Trinity Breha-Huffman, “Burnt Out”, Painting

Sela Marks “Power is A Fire That Can Be Controlled or Released”, Drawing, and Mia Lemmons “Her Star Shines The Brightest”, Sculpture

Oct 122023
 

Cardboard sculpture by Richard Entel and his 5 year old daughter Emily; Photographs by Jane Housham

Jane Housham, “Color Squares”

Meryl Bennett, “Fountain 3”, epoxy resin

Sculptures by Richard Entel and his daughter Emily

Every autumn Dunedin Fine Art Center chooses a universal theme that runs through all of their galleries. This year they chose PLAY. It’s a wonderful choice and makes for a delightful time in the various galleries.  This is the last week to see two of the exhibitions- PLAY On!, a selection of wonderful artist made toys and toy related art (photos above), and LOL: Funny Papers, a juried selection of  art work incorporating comics, illustrations, zines and mixed media collage (photos below).

Catch both of these shows before they close on 10/15/23.

Barbara Hubbard, “Quantum Entanglement #5”, print collage/hand colored

Cory Robinson, “Just a Reminder”, spray paint and acrylic (left); and Cort Hartle “You’ll Come Back to Haunt You” acrylic, and “We were running hand in hand”, ceramic

Michael Crabb, “Spaceman Spiff”, mixed media

Kaitlin Crockett/ Print St. Pete, “Rizo Zoo” and “Welcome to My Adult Life” risograph zines; Denis Gaston, “Fear of Flying”, book

Yhali Ilan, “Meanwhile”, acrylic

Corey Robinson’s work can also be found every week in the Creative Loafing Tampa Bay newspaper.

Print St. Pete, founded by Kaitlin Crockett and Bridget Elmer is a small community letterpress and risograph printshop which offers studio access, workshops, and custom printing.

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.

 

Jul 142023
 

The 2023 Emerging Artist Exhibition in Creative Pinellas’ gallery space highlights work from the ten Pinellas County artists chosen by the organization for this year’s Emerging Artist Grant.

Above are sculptures by Amy Wolf. She has written several articles for the Creative Pinellas website which give some insight into her work and are worth a read.


According to artist Kimberly Engel, the paintings above “explore vibrant color interaction while inviting viewers to meditate on an illusive horizon line where sky meets water.”

From the Creative Pinellas website-

Kimberly Engel is a contemporary abstract painter who lives and works in Clearwater, Florida. Her distinct gestural style combines a love for color interaction with spontaneous mark making. Engel’s paintings explore levels of transparency, evoking depth and light. She is inspired by the constant presence and changing states of large bodies of water. She has lived on the shore of Lake Erie in Euclid, Ohio prior to moving to the Gulf Coast.

Engel describes her process as an exploration of herself and ultimately the dissolving of herself mirrored in the process of making and deconstructing works. Her gestural marks have been described as both compulsive and somewhat calligraphic. They undulate and disappear under thin veils of color.

Also check out her Instagram.

Denis DeBon created the unique glass works seen above.

His biography from the gallery website-

Dennis DeBon is the creator of EnergyWebs, which are one-of-a-kind works of modern glass art. He is often been compared to artist Jackson Pollock. Like Pollack, Dennis uses simple artistic techniques and has combined reverse painting on glass with spin art and taken both to a whole new level.

Each EnergyWeb is cut from a large sheet of plate glass, then free-style hand-cut into shape, scalloped, polished then spun. Dennis uses a multitude of application techniques and color combinations when creating each piece before firing and hand-signing them.

Every EnergyWeb is a unique, one-of-a-kind work of modern glass art and he is the only artist in the world creating them.

In addition to selling his artwork at fine art festivals across the country, Dennis was commissioned as the artist to create the Richard Dawkins Awards. In addition, his past creations have been presented to James “The Amazing” Randi, Carl Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan,  and the Zora Neale Hurston and the Koi Society of America award winners.

Dennis was born and raised in Buffalo, New York and attended the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, where he studied photography and graphic design.

He now lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida and when he isn’t creating art, you might find him writing screenplays or in the boxing ring . . . working as a professional boxing referee.

For more of the artists in the exhibition, head to the pages below.

Apr 122023
 

“With a Full Heart”

“Unforbidden Pleasures”

“Unforbidden Pleasures” (detail)

“Wild Nights”

Currently at the Creative Pinellas gallery is Yolanda Sánchez’s Out of Eden, a collection of her paintings and textile work. The gallery is filled bright pleasing colors and this is the perfect exhibition to celebrate the spring season.

On the Creative Pinellas website, Sánchez discusses her work in a detailed essay. Below is a section of that piece.

Whether in painting or textiles, my working instruments are rhythm and color. I am interested in the joyful, playful or even spiritual properties of light. I am reflecting the light and color of where I live, of my immediate environment.

This artistic practice is improvisational and process-oriented, abstract. The relationship of one color to another creates a rhythm and tempo and establishes the composition. Each color suggests the next color, almost like the “call and response” form found in many musical traditions. There is a continuous orchestration, as the colors converse with one another, suggesting a mood or vibe.

I am often not sure where it is going or going to go. It is a surprise at every turn. I shape my perception as I work.

My textile work is informed by the Korean art form known as Bojagi. Humble in its origins, nameless women made these traditional textiles as often extravagant visual pieces using mundane, leftover fabric from wrapping, storing and transporting goods. Over time, the nobility introduced finer, more delicate cloth.

In its traditional form, design characteristics include stitching and seams to create linear elements, especially with translucent fabrics. These features differentiate and distinguish Bojagi from patchwork textiles found in other cultural traditions. Nevertheless, Bojagi shares what feminist art historians identify as centuries-old histories of turning scraps of fabric into beautiful objects and ultimately shifting perspectives from private to public.

I pay homage to these unknown women, authenticating their domestic work – and I affirm their values of inclusion, pleasure, love, the familial, the decorative, the colorful and joyful, the spiritual and the everyday.

My Bojagi-inspired textile work – painting with thread and fabric – honors the Korean tradition. Still, while relying on the conventions and basic structure, these pieces extend and interpret the Bojagi into a more contemporary form. I offer a new direction by varying medium and size and utilizing color compositions and stitching techniques less anchored to established methods.

Material, color, texture and transparency are crucial elements in this work, as is the geometry inherent in the design. While geometry, in this case, emerges from a particular culture, the form does not demand a specific culture-dependent response. Its only function is beauty. It is about the sensual delight derived from looking – the viewer can ascribe or chose meaning, if at all.

As an order, rhythm and pattern are generated within the geometry, creating beauty through harmony and stability, color dominates as a suggestive poetic force, concurrently evoking a connection to my immediate tropical environment. It sets as my intention arousing a sense of place, a feeling, and the atmosphere of an abstract garden, or even a walk through a field of flowers.

It is the color but also the sensuousness of nature that I endeavor to suggest in both my paintings and textiles.

This exhibition closes 4/16/23.

Mar 162023
 

Eric “ESH” Hornsby, “Living Daylights 1″and “Living Daylights 2”

Adam Christopher Reed, “The Judge”

Nikita Rosalind, “Peace in the Wild Waves”

The Werk Gallery is an exciting new space in St. Pete that hosts monthly exhibitions in one half and the owners’ curated mix of vintage and modern items in the other. The photos above are from Shiny & New, the first gallery’s first show.

Artists from this exhibition pictured above- Adam Christopher Reed, Nikita Rosalind, and Eric “ESH” Hornsby

Currently the gallery is showing Rite of Spring, featuring artists Kenny Jensen, Nathan Beard, Samson Huang, Laura Spencer (Miss Crit), John Gascot, and Leafmore Studios (Becca McCoy and Justin Groom).

The gallery is open Thursday- Sunday from 12-5 pm.

Dec 142022
 

Orange Tree

One Line That Connects Us

Orange Tree by Angela Warren is one of several of her works currently located at the Fenway Hotel in Dunedin, Florida. Organized by Creative Pinellas, Beyond the Walls 2022 places Pinellas County artists in several different hotels in the county.

Warren is also part of Arts Annual 2022 at the Creative Pinellas Gallery. For this exhibition she created the interactive work shown above, One Line That Connects Us.

From her Instagram about the work-

Last summer I took some time to brainstorm this work. I wanted to do a piece that would engage people in the gallery and encourage others to participate in creating. My idea/the concept is that we are all literally connected with one line, there’s so much that divides people but art is a way to connect us together! 💜

One Line That Connects Us:

This is an interactive art piece.

This year was hard. The recent hurricane Ian, the pandemic, various wars…these things pushed us further and further away from each other. It’s time to come back together!

During the 2022 Arts Annual opening on November 11th, I invite friends to have their portrait drawn by me in a “blind contour” style. If guests are feeling extra brave and want to take a turn, it is highly suggested!

The two rules are, no looking at the canvas, and no lifting your marker. This allows for an intimate interaction between the drawer, and the drawee. Once there are a good “community” of drawings, we can fill in each others portraits.

The picture above is from one of the earlier days of the piece. Check out her Instagram for more updated shots or better yet, see it at the gallery.

Tomorrow, 12/15, Creative Pinellas is having a party to celebrate the exhibition, from 6-9pm. It’s a great way to experience the show and meet the artist participants.

 

Nov 172022
 

Verve Supreme by Neverne Covington

The Blue Book of Love & Longing by Neverne Covington

The Blue Book of Love & Longing by Neverne Covington (closer)

The Book of Remembering and Forgetting by Neverne Covington

The Book of Remembering and Forgetting by Neverne Covington

Currently at the Creative Pinellas Gallery is Arts Annual 2022. Creative Pinellas invited past Professional and Emerging Artist Grantees to participate in the show, which celebrates the work of local artists. Many of the works from the show are also available for sale.

For more on artist Neverne Covington, whose work is above, here is a bit more information.

This year the following artists are included in the show-

This exhibition is on view from November 11th through December 31st, 2022. It’s a great way to see some of the best artwork being made by local artists in Pinellas County.

A selection of some of the work on view is on the pages below, but all of the work is definitely worth checking out.

Oct 132022
 

This is the last weekend to see Jason Hackenwerth’s exhibition DARKMATTER at Creative Pinellas in Largo, Florida. It includes the two giant balloon sculptures shown above, as well as several of the artist’s paintings and drawings.

To hear the artist discuss his work, and see more views of the sculptures and artwork in the gallery, check out this video.

This weekend is also Third Saturday at Pinewood (Creative Pinellas, Florida Botanical Gardens, and Heritage Village). For this event Hackenworth will be leading a family arts workshop where he will be teaching visitors how to create sculptures from balloons.

DARKMATTER closes on Sunday, 10/16/22.