Move, by Thomas Evans, aka Detour, was created for PINCFest in Sarasota’s Rosemary District. The mural depicts Congolese dancer Enock Kadima (left) and singer/dancer Canela Vasquez (right), who performs with the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, which is based in Sarasota.
Evans recently completed a mural for Long Beach Walls in Los Angeles. In addition to posting recent work, he also gives useful art advice every Tuesday on his Instagram page.
One of the two Creative Liberties spaces in the Limelight District
On the second Saturday of every month artists from the Sarasota Studio Artists Association open their studios around Sarasota, Florida. One place to stop is the Limelight District where you can find Creative Liberties, Palmer Modern, and The Bazaar.
Founded by artists Barbara Gerdeman and Elizabeth Goodwill, Creative Liberties opened its first location at the end of 2021 and the second in February of this year. Along with the artist studios, the space hosts exhibitions and classes for children and adults.
The exhibition space and tables from a finished class from September 2023
If you go make sure to also check out the delightful Free Little Art Gallery. Created by artist Judy Robertson and modeled after the Free Little Libraries, you are encouraged to take a piece of art, leave a piece of art, or sometimes just admire what’s been donated. There is one for work by adults and for children’s art work.
Below are images from a few of the artist’s spaces in the Creative Liberties buildings.
Paintings by Lisa DiFranza
Paintings by Adrienne Watts
Paintings by David Sigel
Photography by Henry Martin
Work by Sandra Wix
Paintings by Cheryl Taub
Work by Susan Hurwitch
Paintings by Ava Young
Work by Creative Liberties founder Barbara Gerdeman
Work by artists Traci Kegerreis and Sandy Koolkin
On the next page- Palmer Modern and The Bazaar
“Ripening Shadows”, 2023, Colored pencil on toned paper
It was great to see Lauren Mann’s drawings again, this time at Art Center Sarasota for her exhibition The Ephemerality of Being. Her work was previously part of 2022’s emerging artist exhibition Fresh Squeezed 6 at Morean Arts Center, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The artist’s statement about the show-
Growing up and getting older is seeing time pass and recognizing you can’t do anything but try to take in every moment. It’s exhausting. It’s taking a deep labored breath and deciding to rest in the peaceful aftermath of the realization that your time on earth is finite.
This work combines delicate portraiture with the rich symbolism of inanimate objects to create new, contemporary still lives. Bright, sanguine memento moris. By carefully veiling these reminders of humanity’s brittle ephemerality behind the facade of beautiful and nuanced illustrations of ordinary characteristics and relationships found in everyday life, it compels the viewer to reflect on their own lived experiences and feelings towards mortality, comparatively to those conveyed in these works.
This exhibition closes 9/30/23.
“System of (architecture)” 2023, (black) and “System of (emotion)”, 2023, (pink), Stoneware and glazes
“Line, Dot, Squiggle (a search for something more)”, 2022, Micron, colored pencil, silver leaf, vellum and colored porcelain on paper
“Line, Dot, Squiggle (a search for something more)”, 2022, (detail)
Pictured above are some of the works from Iren Tete’s exhibition systems of (entanglement) at Art Center Sarasota. These engaging sculptures (and one mixed media work) explore the various systems that surround and influence our daily lives.
The artist’s statement about the exhibition-
things fold and unfold
meander, bend, and twist
until they become other things
We make deliberate and accidental choices which result in further deliberate and accidental choices. This evolves into a network of choices, a system leading from present to future, defined by scientific reasoning yet clouded by emotional irrationality.
Systems surround us, and perhaps even define us. Systems of (entanglement) navigates, questions, and tenderly accepts these systems –
systems of thought
systems of architecture
systems of gravity
systems of language
systems of emotion
systems of logic
systems of history
systems of memory
systems of time
systems of
I engage with these numerous systems while making. My thoughts oscillate between those of simple actions – pinch, coil, squeeze- to those of things that are infinitely complex and a part of something else – such as time. These separate systems interconnect and grow into something bigger that is a part of the entangled network of systems where one thing becomes another.
This exhibition will close on 9/30/23
This mural by Diske Uno in Sarasota, Florida, was created as part of PINCfest, organized by PINC Experience.