By Tony Wong Palms. While Jason Hackenwerth’s sculptures and paintings in the Creative Pinellas Gallery seem like two separate entities, the paintings are compositions that create a landscape for the balloon sculptures – an enveloping experience…. Read More
By Robin O’Dell. This exhibition is a must-see for anyone interested in photography, and everyone who wants to see accomplished artists in dialogue about important subjects. This work matters. And in my opinion, Dawoud Bey’s giant dark photographs of places in Ohio thought to be locations on the Underground Railroad make it worth coming to this exhibition – because no image in a book or screen could ever compare to the subtle visceral beauty of these prints…. Read More
By Robyn Crosa. Visual artist Robyn Crosa gave an Artist Talk earlier this month at the Largo Public Library, to talk about her Gourdgeous Goddess Gals exhibit, on display at the library through July 29. You can see a video of her talk here, along with a Spanish interpreter. During the presentation she also sings the traditional song, “Follow the Drinking Gourd” and reads a children’s book based on the song…. Read More
By Kurt Loft. The famed French sculptor Rodin, who created the iconic “The Thinker,” takes center stage through the end of October at the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College in Lakeland. The free exhibition, Rodin: Contemplation and Dreams, includes 40 works from the acclaimed B. Gerald Cantor Collections. It marks the largest installation of sculptures in the museum’s history…. Read More
By Jake-ann Jones. Celeste Davis became executive director of Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts (TBBCA) in February of 2021, bringing decades of professional design experience along with an insightful curatorial eye. She points to the growing appreciation of both established and contemporary Black artists and their work coming to area museums as “a natural experience for curators, for visitors, for everyone to think more broadly, more diversely, more inclusively…. Read More
By Laura Kepner. “We bring people together,” says Jennifer Malin of Community Foundation Tampa Bay. “We work with philanthropists who invest their money with us and we match them with a community need.” CFTB’s newest space at 110 Central Avenue in downtown St. Pete is dedicated to showcasing local art. Right now their space hosts paintings by Nathan Beard, works by Nick Davis and a permanent mural by Ya La’Ford…. Read More
By Jake-ann Jones. A dynamic display of contemporary Black women artists, including Shannon Elyse Curry, Kendra Frorup, Nneka Jones, Jodi Minnis and Princess Smith, is currently on view at the Tampa Museum of Art (TMA) in Verde: Poetics of Shade. Taking its title from contemplation on the color green and its various emotions and feelings, the exhibit considers several shades and symbolic messages evoked from the color through the mediums of painting, sculpture, ceramics, and embroidery on canvas…. Read More
By Carol Mickett. I knew as soon as I walked into The Visit, the first solo museum exhibition in the U.S. by Uruguayan-Spanish artist Yamandú Canosa, that I was not in the typical Museum show. It’s rare to find a show such as The Visit which quietly and simply creates a place. The entire show itself is generated from Canosa’s visit to the home of Salvador Dalí in Port Lligat, Spain. Canosa uses the home of Dalí and its landscape to construct a place of his own that pays homage to his visit and to his roots in Spanish art history and surrealism…. Read More
By Tom Winchester. The DMG School Project brings the art of glass to students who don’t otherwise have access to this art by offering demonstrations and workshops on-site at local schools. This project is funded, in part, by the Pinellas County Recovers Grant that’s awarded by Creative Pinellas through the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Rescue Plan. The DMG School Project helps to put the power of creativity into the hands of the next generation…. Read More
By Jackie Kaufman. The St. Petersburg Chess Club is a hidden gem close to downtown St. Pete. They have been operating in the same location longer than any other chess club in the United States, 91 years – yes that is right, since 1931 in the same building. Through this NEA/Pinellas Recovers grant project, the members will make their own individual chess pieces out of pewter, and learn the whole creative process.
…. Read More
