Elizabeth Indianos – Public/Private

In March 2020 artist Elizabeth Indianos stood in front of a long blank wall in the Tarpon Springs Cultural Center where she had been commissioned by the City’s Public Art Committee to transform the space into a historical mural about Tarpon Springs. The mural was to be completed by June.

“All was ready to begin until it wasn’t. In a state of lockdown, I promptly left this work in a state of suspended animation, story ready to unfold on Covid Shutdown Eve.”

Sitting at home with uncertainty about the future, Indianos received notice she had been awarded a Creative Pinellas 2020 Professional Artists Grant. That recognition rekindled her creative spirit and provided the opportunity to express her feelings through blogs, complete the mural (in isolation), and write and produce two plays as the pandemic continued to play out.

“Uplifted at that very movement, I believed again that we would endure and survive via our innate ability to create – to build a future landscape in this crisis, one that will renew and flourish.”

The completed mural, entitled This Blessed Plot, This Earth taken from a line in Shakespeare’s Richard II, is now the centerpiece for the retrospective exhibition Elizabeth Indianos INTROSPECTIVE: Public / Private on view August 26 through November 30 and sponsored by Tarpon Arts.

It occupies both floors of the Tarpon Springs Cultural Center, the historic and newly restored 1915 building originally built as the first City Hall. It is a perfect venue for this exhibit that traces the nearly 50-year career of Elizabeth Indianos as an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and playwright.

Indianos has lived in Tarpon Springs since 1975, where she received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to become the official Artist in Residence for the City of Tarpon Springs.

Over the years she has enhanced the artistic development of the city through mural projects, public art, administrative leadership, teaching, written and performed plays, and many other artistic contributions. Her reputation extends beyond Tarpon Springs to receive state-wide, national and international recognition.

The exhibition includes gallery spaces dedicated to Elizabeth Indianos as a playwright, multidisciplinary artist and public art designer. The foyer of the Cultural Center introduces the artist and her desire to create “a vibrant, integrated experience, via the lifting power of each media.”

The adjacent Reception Gallery is dedicated to her creative efforts as a playwright, but the massive This Blessed Plot, This Earth mural is the crown jewel.

The mural, a visual history presented through a cast of characters, events, sites, flora and fauna represents the historical development of Florida, and specifically Tarpon Springs. This was then translated into a one-act play of the same name to interpret the visual narrative, so historic figures, animals and birds could be brought to life.

The creative experience is further explored through a 30-minute video, The Story of the Mural and Play documentary.

This all serves as the background for Indianos’ award-winning accomplishments as a playwright. Four produced plays – Waiting for Guacamole, Libertaire, No Know Nothing and This Blessed Plot, This Earth, are presented through production images, props, costumes and awards. Each play required collaboration with composer Michael Amish, and support staff for staging and costume design, actors to powerfully tell the story, and assistants to make Indianos’s plays become staged reality.

This ability to translate creative vision into collective passion is a hallmark of Indianos’s artistic strength.

As one ascends the staircase to the second floor, examples of the support Elizabeth Indianos has given to her community line the walls as well as acknowledgment of her work as an adjunct art educator over the past twenty years at St. Petersburg College’s Tarpon Springs campus.

At the top of the landing is an Artist Statement and two galleries that present Indianos’s work as a visual artist.

The historic former City Council Chamber is a beautiful gallery for showcasing her as a Multidisciplinary Artist. Entering the room, one is overwhelmed by the size, scale and non-traditional media used to express her art. Many pieces are personal and relate to family, friendship and faith, such as her commanding St. Michaels Tuesday Before COVID installation, a conceptual work documenting her weekly visits to the shrine to bring flowers, light candles and offer prayers.

Other work reflects Indianos’ response to environmental issues, such as her personal experience with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill disaster.

The smaller, but equally impactful Annex Gallery presents seven of the 14 public art commissions awarded to Elizabeth Indianos for locations throughout Florida and North Carolina. While Birds Leaving the Earth at Tampa International Airport, Airside A might be her most visibly recognized installation, the Southern Transit Center project near the Tampa Convention Center is one of her most ambitious.

Projects like Solar Walk in Gainesville, The Sundial on the campus of Northwest Florida State College in Niceville FL, and the Eastland Transit Center pathways in Charlotte, North Carolina included a team of engineers and fabricators, and required project management as part of the artistic vision.

The highlight of Indianos’s public art applications was a team proposal accepted as one of the finalist entries for the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition in New York City.

The exhibition Elizabeth Indianos INTROSPECTIVE: Public / Private is open to the public with no admission fee on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1-4 pm September 6 through November 30 (closed Thanksgiving Day, November 23).

Three Meet the Artist and Guided Exhibit Tours are scheduled on Sundays at 2 pm – on August 27, October 8 and November 12. You can find ticket information on the Tarpon Arts website.

 

Tarpon Springs Cultural Center
101 S. Pinellas Avenue (Alt. 19)
Tarpon Springs FL 34689
727-942-5605
tarponarts.org

 

elizabethindianos.com