Galleries are the marketplace of an arts community. They may sometimes look like minimuseums but their goal is to sell art. Many area art galleries don't organize new shows with much frequency; they have a stable of artists and art that they interchange. Some also have frame shops. Some are frame shops with a little token art thrown in. • But most serious art galleries routinely curate new shows and have a focus that reflects the owner's preferences along with a pragmatic eye for sales. We have a lot of generous patrons who support museums and a public that likes to visit them, but the sad fact is that few people here spend a lot of money buying art from local sources. To be fair, if you're into really high-end collecting, this isn't New York or even Miami. But we have a lot of really good art exhibited here in independent commercial galleries. Right now, there is an especially abundant roster of choices. Here are a few to consider. ...
C. Emerson Fine Arts
909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg; (727) 898-6068 or c-emersonfinearts.com. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday or by appointment.
Owner Lori Johns has a gift for pulling together group shows of disparate artists and linking them with a theme or concept that actually makes sense and doesn't seem arbitrary. Many of the artists she shows are younger, working in a neo-pop vein. "Deft," which continues through April 17, is a good example. Nine artists channel current cultural movements, often upending them with unusual presentation. Johns' shows deliver equal parts irony and heart.
New Emerson gallery show is a 'Deft' mix of witty art
By Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic
In Print: Thursday, February 25, 2010
The show opening Friday at C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, is titled "Deft," and it is a deft mix of cultural commentary and witty art by nine artists working in various media. Techniques vary from Patrick Fatica's doe-eyed girl-women painted with Old Master grandeur to Rocky Grimes' rough-around-the-edges silkscreen prints. It's all like a small compendium of now art. A free opening reception is 7 to 10 p.m. Friday. "Deft" continues through April 17. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. Open until 9 p.m. every second Saturday. (727) 898-6068; c-emersonfinearts.com.
C. EMERSON PRESENTS A THOUGHT PROVOKING EXHIBIT FOR AQUA ART MIAMI
ST. PETERSBURG/ MIAMI – C. Emerson Fine Arts proudly presents a group exhibit of drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture for Aqua Art Miami. The exhibition will include works by 10 artist of international reputation: Gary Baseman, Kyan Bishop, Clayton Chandler, Rocky Grimes, Patrick Lindhardt, Leah Oates, Pose, Push, Ryan the Wheelbarrow and Jeff Whipple. This diverse group of contemporaries represents the evolving movement of art transcending boundaries of expectations and genre.
The works in the C. Emerson Aqua Art Miami exhibition relate the artists’ captivation with social/cultural issues and personal narrative.The psychological presence of these pieces engages the viewer to reexamine the conceptual basis of surrealism, pop culture and abstract art.
Gary Baseman is an internationally adored pervasive artist.His iconic work is Id driven, surreal and playful. Kyan Bishop uses the Ego of her subconscious mind to express an internal struggle with her fascination of completely falling apart .Jeff Whipple advances realism to create a very surrealistic expression of human nature.Clayton Chandler, Push, Ryan the Wheelbarrow play with line quality and abstraction. They engage the viewer’s imagination to actively look far beyond the obvious. Leah Oates and Pose respond to urban experience. Oates uses layers of photography to reflect upon the transcendental experience of landscape. Pose is an influential contributor to the graffiti movement. Rocky Grimes and Patrick Lindhardt expound printmaking to extremes. Grimes’ punk rock sensibility appropriates screen printing creating multi-media installations. He challenges material consumption and culturally driven desires. Lindhardt is a master printmaker utilizing narrative traversing natural disaster.
LA Times has describes Gary Baseman’s art "adorably perverse."
“Leah Oates’s photographs of Transitory Spaces, articulate the amassed banality of the trace and by-products from social processes and consumption” Drain Magazine.
Juxtapoz recently interviewed Pose and a part of his collective We Are Supervision. They described him as “graff-writing god Pose.” Rocky Grimes a Juxtapoz favorite has recently been included in Juxtapoz Poster Art Book.
Many of the artists exhibiting have had recent museum exhibitions.
St. Petersburg exhibition of Lee Lee paintings highlights degradation of environment
Ghost, Abandoned Slaughterhouse 2009, watermedia, pencil and tar on shotgunned collage.
BY LENNIE BENNETT
Times Art Critic
ST. PETERSBURG
As the Good Book tells us, we reap what we sow. In the eyes of artist Lee Lee, the harvest is not heartening. She provides a persuasive visual argument for her conclusion in a large exhibition of her work at C. Emerson Fine Arts titled, appropriately, "Reap."
As sobering as her subject matter — environmental desecration — the works are less grim than you'd expect, mostly because they're also beautiful.
Yes, roadkill can be lovely when the dead animals are drawn with such elegance and laid out over patterns of tar tire tracks.
Still, Lee's paintings contain a strong element of didactic anger that technique can't mute. Red plays a dominant role in most works. It's sprinkled liberally through the Slaughterhouse series in portraying a place of animal death. The paper is shot through with bullets, then laid over a red backing. More red is spattered over the slaughterhouse interior. Red is also used metaphorically both in the slaughterhouse, to reference the damage of large carbon footprints, and in paintings of a missile silo where no killing actually occurs, rather its conveyance as a launching pad.
The stylistic middle ground Lee favors, between representational and abstract, is well served in Crop — The American Heartland, three paintings from an aerial perspective showing grids of fields compromised by industrial manufacturing plants. I should say that's probably what Lee paints because the works are blurred by a thin coat of white paint that resembles a dusting of snow or a bank of clouds.
The two largest paintings, both titled Rain — Oil Refinery, are divided in half by their treatments. The tops are realistic depictions of the refinery that melt into drips and pools of color at the bottom. In some ways they hearken back to Charles Sheeler's industrial landscapes of the mid 20th century. But Sheeler celebrated a generally held faith back then in industry's power to create a stronger, better nation. Lee, too, portrays her subject as a grand edifice but footnotes it with a murky pool of contaminated water that dispels the old optimism.
Bleed is the most visceral group, 12 paintings on plywood of aspen trunks blighted by a new strain of canker disease. Stands of trees cluster in a green wash of early morning light. Their gray bark is gouged and painted a blood red to resemble and exaggerate the effect of the virus.
Like all the works here — fallen birds resting on softly colored backgrounds, bees in various stages of decomposition yet still with their sprightly yellow and black markings, even the slaughterhouse and missile silo — we are left with a strange ambivalence about ignominious ends somehow ennobled through art.
Lennie Bennett can be reached at lennie@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8293.
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Lee Lee, Rain Oil Refinery,watercolor, conte & oil on unstretched canvas - detail , 2009
What does it look like to have a tree scream out in desperation? In October, C Emerson Fine Arts in St Petersburg, FL will exhibit paintings created by Lee Lee which are driven by concerns about our nourishment, as well as a fear for the resulting degradation of the environment.
Oil makes up the foundation of the American food machine. Our reliance on fossil fuels in food production is immense. Not only are they used extensively in farming and transportation, they are also the catalyst which fixes ammonium nitrate to make chemical fertilizers. Dominating this installation are paintings depicting an oil refinery in the rain. The size emphasizes our reliance on oil, while the execution questions the effects of fossil fuels on the cleanliness of our natural resources through paint stains dripping into the water.
Flying above Midwestern plains, the crop circles and grids of industrial farms are an imposition on ancient grasslands. The only remaining natural elements are the occasional rivers whose fingers branch up into the geometric landscape. The Crop series consists of dormant fields under a light dusting of snow to reflect how our process of conventional farming is leaching nutrients from the earth while filling our waterways with poisons, which will ultimately cause infertility in our land. Pairing the Crop landscapes with interiors of an abandoned Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silo illustrates a direct link between our systematic food production and war. After WWII, the US Agriculture department encouraged farmers to spread ammonium nitrate, leftover from bomb construction, onto their fields as fertilizer. Today we are deeply entrenched in a war in an attempt to feed our oil habit, which in turn sustains the industrial food machine. It is disturbing that our "nourishment" is born out of war and continues to manifest such destruction to this day.
Continuing down the path of food production, a series of watercolors manifests the haunted spaces of an abandoned slaughterhouse. The energy it takes to raise meat takes up the bulk of grain that we produce. In his book, Anger, Thich Nhat Hanh describes how traces of energy are absorbed through consumption. For example, if an animal leads a miserable life, then we absorb that misery when we take their meat into our bodies. This series is complimented by a set of roadkill drawings which serve as a poignant reflection of our attitude towards animal life; these wild animals lay as part of our refuse, disregarded as we speed along the highways of our own lives.
Both nitrate and carbon emissions from America's conventional food machine make a huge contribution to climate change. One of the most visually striking symptoms is emerging as a new virus found in aspen trees. The red gashes in the thin skin-like bark of the trees appear as flesh wounds. More than a literal illustration of a shifting environment, the corporeal appearance of the trees make a connection to our own bodies. As our health is intricately connected to the health of the environment, the violence conveyed through the process of using a shotgun in this series reflects the violence we are wreaking on ourselves.
The built structures portrayed here are in various states of decay; a return to nature. This represents the beginning of a shift in attitude of many Americans who are concerned about the adverse effects of the way we produce and consume food. Despite the prevailing theme of environmental demise in this body of work, we can hardly destroy the environment. Ultimately the world will survive; the question is whether or not humans will be around to enjoy it. The survival of humanity will be determined by the attitudes and approaches we take towards interacting with the environment now.
I met up with Daniel Mrgan this week as he put the final touches on his solo show “Sick Days” that opens tonight at C. Emerson gallery in St. Pete.
Daniel is very talented illustrator who has an even more impressive personality. Welcoming me in his home with a glass of ginger-ale, Mr. Mrgan gives me insight on how his illustrations come to life and how silent movies from the 20’s and 30’s are involved.
Artist’s statement
For the most part, I am a healthy individual. No major ailments or conditions that I can speak of. But it wasn’t always so.
Some of my earliest, and certainly most vivid, childhood memories are of doctors’ offices, hospital waiting rooms, and a plethora of various home remedies (which in Croatia, where I was raised, are referred to as bablji lijekovi, or “grandma’s medicine”). You see, I had a tendency to get ill as a child. A lot. In addition to the seasonal flu, stomach viruses, common colds, and runny noses that I suppose are a standard part of many a childhood, I suffered from chronic bronchitis, asthma, and multiple allergies. Needless to say, my fragile health made an assortment of pills, tissue boxes and an arsenal of inhalers a constant presence on my nightstand and in my pockets and school backpack. While most of my peers got sent off to school with a kiss and a reminder to not forget their lunch bags, mittens, hats, and such, my mother often had to shout after me: “… and don’t forget your tissues and inhaler!”
If prescribed medications didn’t work for some reason, there was my grandmother – our household’s endless resource of diverse, bulletproof home remedies that would without a doubt cure whatever was ailing me in three to four days, tops. Pig’s lard on the chest for bronchitis and asthma, vinegar-soaked socks for high fever, salt for scraped and bleeding knees and elbows, raw quail eggs and honey for strength, and my personal favorite of preventative medicine – wearing a red item of clothing is an open invitation to chickenpox, so don’t do it!
All of these experiences made me curiously aware of my body and the way it functioned. I was too young to understand the science behind it but at an ideal age to explain it to myself through an imagination fueled by the richly illustrated children’s books and magazines that I was devouring at the time. Most often, I used nature as a departure point – my ailing lungs became two big and dried up leaves; veins in my body took the shape of grape vines found behind our house.
The work in this exhibit is inspired by those particular memories. The days of long hours spent in bed, the days of doctors and home remedies. The sick days.
Welcome to On the Radar, where we preview up-and-coming arts events to mark your calendar for. This Friday, C. Emerson Fine Arts debuts a collection of woodburnings that recall artist Daniel Mrgan’s “sick days” as a child.
Wood burning usually calls to mind a roaring fire, hot chocolate and comforting memories, but when Croatian-born artist Daniel Mrgan experimented in woodburning for his Sick Days exhibit, the results are cartoon-like depictions of medical curiosities: a nurse holding a syringe whose eyes are carried away by chirping birds; an emaciated man’s body floating above a city as if experiencing the effects of the nurse’s morphine; or a shivering, skeletal figure, the source of whose sickness is seemingly being expelled from his mouth – all images seared into wood panels and embellished with oil pencil and woodstain. Mrgan says the collection is inspired by his near-constant childhood doctor visits, home remedies and long hours spent in bed – the sick days. (Pictured: “Morphine” by Daniel Mrgan, from the Sick Days exhibit) Opening reception, Fri., Sept. 4, 9 p.m.-midnight, free, C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, gallery hours 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tues.-Fri., noon-5 p.m. Sat., on display through Sept. 26, c-emersonfinearts.com. – Franki Weddington
Eva Eun-Sil Han definitely has both sides of her brain engaged. "Measured Emotions," an exhibition of her work at C. Emerson Fine Arts, has poetry and geometry at work. The artist collages photographs, her own and others, often drawing and painting onto the paper. Many of them seem purely abstract and in most, the assemblage of images is in such bits and pieces they don't seem meant to be discerned specifically. But Han is going for a visceral response from us (that's the "Emotion" part of the show's title), whether it's a response to the cut-and-paste drama of her constructions or the provocative glimpses of recognizable body parts. She doesn't give us any hints since all are untitled.
I got references ranging from the fracturing employed by pop artist James Rosenquist to Un chien andalou, the 1929 surrealist film by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. But mainly, I got juxtapositions that combine a reactive image — a sexual tangle of legs or hair, a pair of terrified eyes repeated three times, for example — interrupted by Han's carefully cut prisms and circles. The thought of a blade sharp enough for such precision adds another reaction (and again recalls the sliced eyeball scene from Un chien andalou).
There are meditative works here, too. A vintage photograph of a European cathedral is superimposed with angular bits of color shaped into a large tondo, like a stained glass window. A shedding pomegranate tree and the red shards that surround it suggest the fruit's varied symbolic meanings, especially its Christian association with suffering and sacrifice.
But those are my perceptions. This is a show that functions as a Rorshach test for viewers, asking us to look intuitively and analytically for our own individual meanings.
>> Measured Emotions
The exhibition is at C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave. , St. Petersburg. Hours are 11 a.m. to
4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. Free. c-emersonfinearts.com or (727) 898-6068.
Measure For Measure
See and Do
Creative Loafing
CL's must do for the week of Thursday., August 1- - Wednesday., August 19
"Untitled," mixed-media collage. By Eva Eun-Sil Han, from the Measured Emotions exhibit at C. Emerson Fine Arts
It’s August - traditionally a sleepy month for visual art in Tampa Bay - but that’s not stopping C. Emerson Fine Arts owner Lori Johns from launching what’s sure to be a delightful exhibition of Eva Eun-Sil Han’s eye-popping collages. Tapping into the legacies of Surrealism and Dada Ö la Hannah Hîch, the South Korea-born, Belgium-based artist combines portions of vintage photographs and found images with delicate, hand-painted or drawn shapes. Working lately with geometric grids and patterns, Han crafts riveting visual puzzles-often slyly erotic and always mysterious-from seemingly disparate sources. Up for just three weeks, the exhibit merits some moments of focus amid the fog of late summer. Measured Emotions: Eva Eun-Sil Han, through Aug. 29, 7-10 p.m., C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, Gallery hours Tues.-Fri., 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Sat., noon-5 p.m., 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com. - Megan Voeller
By Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic
In Print: Thursday, June 11, 2009
Caleb Peeping, by Jamie Jackson, archival ink-jet print.
ST. PETERSBURG
What's the difference between a trip and a journey? You'll see at "Film Lingual 3," a new photography and video show at C. Emerson Fine Arts.
We all will have our own ideas about the distinctions. For me a trip is usually just movement from one point to the next, sometimes for recreation, sometimes work. A journey has an expectation of perceptual changes, shifts in thinking. A change of view that changes us.
Most of the works are landscapes. Some use a straightforward documentary style; others choose a conceptual approach. But each draws us into some new world, whether foreign or familiar.
Austin Nelson's color prints have an elegiac quality to them, found moments of solitude or abandonment in an anonymous motel or Lisa Marie Presley's playground area at the famous Graceland. Windower looks at a storefront's glass that reveals nothing of its interior, reflecting back a bright patch of trees that obscures the silhouette of the photographer.
Joe Walles takes us to the American West in a series of beautifully composed black and white photographs — classic gelatin silver prints — that capture the sense of our misguided efforts to tame its wide open spaces. (Walles, by the way, is a photo editor at the St. Petersburg Times.)
An ocean away, we see African children in an orphanage. Jamie Jackson goes against stereotypes in capturing their lighthearted play with no subtext hinting at circumstances that brought them to that shelter. Leah Oates, too, shifts our media-driven assumptions in examples from her "Beijing" series, which look at crumbling buildings that could be in any urban area.
David Audet continues his exploration of Ybor City with shots of the famously funky shop La France he makes unrecognizable by cutting prints into strips, mixing them up a bit and weaving them together, inviting us to see it in a different way.
The best in my opinion is Dana Plays' mesmerizing double-screen video of a French train coming and going through a tunnel, into a station. The editing is near-perfect, with the engine appearing in massive solidity in one screen and becoming opaque as it travels to the second screen, a ghostly machine transposed over its landscape.
Some of the works don't really fit into my thematic interpretation of the show as a whole. Matt Lindhardt's beautiful underwater photography of a woman (her head, above water, is not in the frame) wearing an evening ensemble is a riff on traditional fashion photography, and Brandon Dunlap's dual image of a pretty girl screen-printed onto wood is a pop homage. It's full of rich, quirky details that deserve more attention than the girl.
On Saturday night only, additional videos will be screened at the gallery, so maybe plan your own trip downtown, have a bite to eat and stop in to see the show. Who knows? It could turn into a journey.
Lennie Bennett can be reached at lennie@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8293.
Windower, an archival ink-jet print by Austin Nelson, reveals nothing of the interior of a storefront.
Leah Oates, Transitory Space, Beijing, China, c-print, edition of five.
>> If You Go
Film Lingual 3
The exhibition at C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, continues through June 20. Gallery hours are
11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon to
5 p.m. Saturday. Free.
Free video screening from 7 to
10 p.m. Saturday.
To preview Dana Plays' Ville France video, go to Lennie Bennett's blog, Critics Circle, at blogs.tampabay.com/arts.
7-10 p.m. – Film Lingual 3 at C. Emerson Fine Arts. C. Emerson Fine Arts’ annual showcase of genre defying photographic works, Film Lingual 3, opens Friday with a one-night-only interactive video projection that puts visitors in the spotlight. (“We need your bodies,” tweets gallery owner Lori Johns.) This year’s roster of artists — David Audet, Nancy Cervenka, Brandon Dunlap, Corey George, Illuminations 33701, Jamie Jackson, Laszlo Horvath, Matthew Lindhardt, Austin Nelson, Leah Oates, Dana Plays and Joseph Walles — promises diversity in their creative explorations, alternately serving up documentary photography, digitally-crafted images and sculpture made from found movie film. Don’t miss an experimental film screening hosted and featuring films by Audet on Tuesday at Café Bohemia. June 5-20, with an opening reception 7-10 p.m. Fri., June 5, C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com; and Short Attention Span Theater, Tues., June 9, 9-11 p.m., Café Bohemia, 937 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, free, myspace.com/cafe_bohemia. (From CLTampa.com.)
By Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic
In Print: Sunday, May 3, 2009
[Photos by MELISSA LYTTLE | Times]
Gulfport artist Nancy Cervenka recently won best of show at Gasparilla and is a perennial winner at Mainsail.
ST. PETERSBURG
The celluloid coils are so seductive. Slithery. And, more than 25 years after Nancy Cervenka began noodling around with rolls of film as a graduate student in cinematography, still mysterious and compelling. They were startling when she introduced the sculptures that seemed to defy gravity and logic. They no longer startle but continue to delight.
Cervenka has a new group of them at C. Emerson Fine Arts along with departures from those signatures that she has increasingly explored in recent years. All remain about film as a tactile material rather than a conveyor of images and information. As sophisticated as they are, they are about as low-tech as a cinematographer can get.
But she also incorporates moving pictures into her art on occasion, in one instance here projecting herself on a wall amid long, snaky coils hanging from the ceiling, like being lost in reptile land. A vessel, shaped as a vase, contains the surprise, when you peer into it, of the artist's eye staring back at you, projected from a camera fitted into the stand holding the work.
She also likes exploring photography. One small gallery is lined with images, snapshot style, she made on a cross-country trek. They feature a G.I. Joe action figure, given to her as a protective totem by a friend, posed in locations at angles that mostly give him a full-sized presence. (Except for the first photo of Joe strapped into a seat belt, looking touchingly small, vulnerable and — I'm serious — expectant of an adventure. It's a charming narrative.)
I have ambivalence about other noncoiled work. Good artists always strive to find new ways to interpret themselves, and I applaud her experimentation. But several sculptures, while promising and certainly interesting, lack the refinement we have come to appreciate in Cervenka's artistry.
One installation uses microfiche sewn together and mounted onto ovoid frames dangling from the ceiling like pop art clouds. They're fun but seem crudely, swiftly constructed. Sometimes that process is the point of a work, producing an appropriate spontaneity. I couldn't make that connection in this case.
The same can be said for a wall sculpture made from old dental X-rays, stapled together in a spiral. Again, its uncultivated construction serves no purpose.
But several other atypical works come together conceptually. One resembling a big squid is fabulous. Another group emulating quilling (an old craft employing small strips of rolled paper into calligraphic shapes) is an updated slice of Americana.
Cervenka also shows small framed film fragments from an older sculpture she says broke accidentally. She seals her works with resin and, in this case, the strips of old film have an ossified appearance, a happy accident she says she could never replicate.
The best new work remains her coils, especially those that are elaborate combinations and constructions. One, for example, is built of several dozen slender "legs" invisibly bound together that balance on a pedestal, emitting light like some strange underwater creature.
As often as I have seen her work, I never tire of seeing it again and always look forward to new iterations. And uneven as they sometimes are, her experimental forays into the unknown always intrigue.
Lennie Bennett can be reached at lennie@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8293.
SCREEN CAP: The C. Emerson site features video taken by a security monitor during a recent show; this is a shot of Johns as she enters the gallery.
Lori Johns "started small" on the Web.
Now she's gone global.
Johns is the owner of C. Emerson Fine Arts Gallery (c-emersonfinearts.com), a pristine white-box contemporary art gallery on Central Avenue in downtown St. Petersburg. She started with just the bare minimum — the website, the Facebook page — but now she's branching out, finding new ways to identify talented artists and sell their work.
There's the Global Talent Data Base, for instance, which bills itself as a kind of international Yellow Pages for talent and creativity (talentdatabase.com). "I've found several good artists on the database," she says. She's also connected with ArtLog, a NY-based networking tool for galleries and artists. And she's learning how to do statistical analysis of her Tweets.
Why truck with all this tech? Because she has a strong interest in showing work that hasn't been seen locally before, and she knows that in order to find it she has to give her gallery a profile in cyberspace.
And sometimes, the world being what it is, sales come in via the web that she had nothing to do with.
For instance, her current "pop surrealism" show, Under the Influence 2, features a work by Brooklyn-based artist Patrick Francisco: a custom-painted vinyl toy chimpanzee, more sullen than cutesy.
A photo of the chimp appeared on a blog, and within a few hours, says Johns, "Someone called up from Oregon" and made arrangements to buy it. (It helps that Francisco has a strong online presence already; "he likes to message me in Twitter," says Johns.)
She uses Facebook a lot, both to promote shows and to maintain a profile, sometimes not even with an obvious gallery connection (like the Matt Groening/ Pablo Picasso faceoff she recently linked to).
But there's some danger in putting yourself too much out there. Facebook updates can be misconstrued as personal messages rather than business communication, so she avoids the mundane personal details.
And even with all this inter-connectedness, it's tough for any independent business, let alone an art gallery, to survive In These Tough Economic Times. Is she optimistic?
"I have seen years where sales have been better," she says. And the area could always use more collectors. But she wouldn't be happy selling "Florida palm tree art." She's selling work, she says, that's "feeding my soul" -- and with the global reach of the Internet, she's able to feed souls all over the world
Clayton Chandler, Piece of Mind, ink on paper, 2008.
Pop surrealism, a fringe movement for years, is going mainstream for good reason. Unlike a lot of contemporary art, it’s figurative and narrative, telling stories with recognizable characters much like traditional art. Only its stories and style are new. And often disturbing. You’ll find a good sampling of pop surrealism at C. Emerson Fine Arts, a gallery that consistently shows some of the best art being created in our area and beyond.
Some of the works have a fairy-tale quality without the happy ending, and several artists who work in anime and manga appropriate elements of the kitschy Big Eye art of the 1960s and 1970s.
Kristen Margiotta’s A Rainy Day in Cherry’s Land, though painted in candy colors, shows a bedraggled waif perched precariously on a landscaped orb surrounded by gray.
Her other paintings are even darker and more Gothic with a Coraline look (director Tim Burton, who produced Coraline, is, a fan of old Big Eye art). Jennifer Lewis’ exquisite little paintings could be charming illustrations for a children’s book.
Except that, on closer study, the octopus is surrounded by skulls, a beautiful woman is paired with skeletons while she seems to strangle a small animal, and two cute foxes dressed as nurses are operating on their prey, a bloody bird, its heart encased in a thought bubble. — Lennie Bennettlennie@sptimes.com
By Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic
In Print: Thursday, March 12, 2009
Patrick Fatica, Somehow I Thought You’d Save Me, Somewhere in January, oil on panel, 2009.
By LENNIE BENNETT
Times Art Critic
ST. PETERSBURG — Pop surrealism, a fringe movement for years, is going mainstream for good reason. Unlike a lot of contemporary art, it's figurative and narrative, telling stories with recognizable characters much like traditional art. Only its stories and style are new. And often disturbing.
You'll find a good sampling of pop surrealism at C. Emerson Fine Arts, a gallery that consistently shows some of the best art being created in our area and frequently casts a wider net to include artists working in a broader national and international arena.
"Under the Influence 2" has that broader scope with only one out of its 10 artists, Johnny Vitale, a local.
Some of the works have a fairy tale quality without the happy ending. Josh Taylor, Kristen Margiotta and, to some extent, Patrick Fatica appropriate, as do many of their peers working in anime and manga, elements of the kitschy Big Eye art of the 1960s and 1970s.
Taylor and Margiotta especially take exaggeration further. Margiotta's A Rainy Day in Cherry's Land, though painted in candy colors, shows a bedraggled waif perched precariously on a landscaped orb surrounded by gray. Her other paintings are even darker and more Gothic with a Coraline look. Taylor's girls also have enormous eyes and heads on tiny bodies — his heads are square and more cartoony — and their precarious existential grip is more palpable, trapped in a swamp and awaiting attack by a serpent.
Fatica's young women are glammed up in full hair and makeup but they, too, are vulnerable, maybe more so because they are painted with such tenderness. Most show the female in the foreground from the neck up, their backs to a landscape that dissolves toward the horizon line glowing with light from a setting (or rising) sun. Somehow I Thought You'd Save Me, Somewhere in January is a loooong title in this age of graphic novels but serves Fatica's style that hints at romance novel cover art.
Victims abound in this show, and the surprise is there are no heroes or avengers around. Jennifer Lewis' exquisite paintings could be charming illustrations for a children's book. Except that, on closer study, the octopus is surrounded by skulls, a beautiful woman is paired with skeletons while she seems to strangle a small animal, and two cute foxes dressed as nurses are operating on their prey, a bloody bird, its heart encased in a thought bubble.
Political commentary is a big part of the movement and the most overt examples come from Clayton Chandler's quirky drawings and Rocky Grimes' screen prints. Grimes' prints are true originals technically and conceptually. His backgrounds are linings from the envelopes bearing his bills. (Like all of us, he gets a lot of bills.) He cuts, tears and collages them onto archival paper, then prints photographic images onto them. They can be savage in their messages of corporate greed but still really beautiful.
Lennie Bennett can be reached at lennie@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8293.
>> if you go
Under the Influence 2
The exhibition is at C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, through April 4. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. Open this Saturday to 9 p.m. (727) 898-6068; c-emersonfinearts.com.
Patrick Fatica. Somehow I Thought You’d Save Me, Somewhere in January. 2009. Oil on panel.
C. Emerson Fine Arts‘ latest exhibit, Under the Influence, showcases the genre of contemporary art often dubbed ‘pop surrealism’ and occasionally ‘lowbrow’ because it bridges practices including illustration, screen-printing, custom toy production (or decoration), and so on. As such, the show may be a bit of a departure for the gallery, where offerings are frequently a touch more cerebral. (Only one artist in this show, Austrian Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten adds a conceptual twist. After filling a TV frame with a distorted, fun-house-esque mirror, the artist photographed visitors as they regarded themselves in it during the exhibit’s opening reception; the sculpture remains installed on one of the gallery’s walls. In a statement, she describes the project as an attempt to “resist and fight back” against media images of the body.)
Humor and visual delight emerge as the main concerns of Under the Influence, which offers a smattering of paintings by artists including Patrick Fatica, Patrick Francisco, Jennifer Lewis and others. All are good or very good representations of the genre, and gallery owner Lori Johns deserves props for her commendable goal of bringing fresh work to the area. Fatica, who studied at Ringling, in particular stands out for his renderings of distorted female figures– vaguely medieval, vaguely extraterrestrial– within cartoonish-ly sublime landscapes. Also included in the show: a collection of screen prints on mixed media (striated backgrounds created by collaging security envelope patterns) by Miami artist Rocky Grimes, whose printed t-shirts are also available.
Under the Influence continues through April 4. For more information, go to c-emersonfinearts.com.
Under the Influence 2, a visual art show, runs March 6 thru April 4 at C. Emerson Fine Arts in St Petersburg, Florida. 909 Central Avenue (Map).
Opening Reception: March 6th, 7-10pm, with live performance art by Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten and live screen printing by Rocky Grimes.
Artists showing work: Clayton Chandler, Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten, Rocky Grimes, Patrick Fatica, Patrick Francisco, Jennifer Lewis, Kristen Margiotta, Benjamin Offroy, Josh Taylor, Johnny Vitale
Submitted By:Chusk Submitted: 1 day 35 minutes ago Category: Art
Opening Reception: March 6th, 7-10pm, with live performance art by Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten and live screen printing by Rocky Grimes.
Artists showing work: Clayton Chandler, Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten, Rocky Grimes, Patrick Fatica, Patrick Francisco, Jennifer Lewis, Kristen Margiotta, Benjamin Offroy, Josh Taylor, Johnny Vitale
"Rescue Boat to Later," a 2008 monotype by Patrick Lindhardt
Printmaking artist Patrick Lindhardt last graced the walls of C. Emerson Fine Arts nearly a year ago, when he and his photographer son were featured in a joint display of their respective talents. This time around, Lindhardt takes the gallery’s spotlight in Fragments, a solo exhibit of new monotypes inspired by his memories of home and a short retrospective of his Flatstone Studios work. Flatstone was founded in 1976 by Lindhardt and his wife after his tenure at USF — both as a student and printer — led to his association with acclaimed pop artist James Rosenquist, who asked Lindhardt to produce several etchings for him. Many months and one garage overhaul later, the Lindhardts were managing their own home garage printmaking workshop in Tampa and had attracted the attention of such noteworthies as Susan Hall, Florence Putterman, John Chamberlain, Theo Wujcik, Mark Stock, Robert Mapplethorpe and plenty of others. The studio is currently based in Sarasota, where Lindhardt lives and works as a fine-art professor at Ringling College of Art and Design. The works are on display through Dec. 23, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tues.-Sat. (noon-9 p.m. second Saturday of the month), 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, free admission.
By Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic
In print: Thursday, October 16, 2008
Frank Strunk III's rusted metal panels could be, if you're looking for a didactic angle, metaphors for the unpredictability of smaller things within the certainly of larger ones. (As in: We know we'll die; we don't know how or when. Expose metal to rain and it will rust; the patterns and progression of rust can't be controlled.) Or they could be abstract compositions exploring meaning in form alone. Either way, they're worth a visit to C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, where "Geometry, Life, Rust," an exhibition of new work including the sculpture Liberated Flow, shown, continues through Nov. 1. (727) 898-6068; c-emersonfinearts.com.
Runs through Nov. 1. C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com.
SCAR TACTICS: "Liberated Flow," by Frank Strunk III, lends metal fragments a subtly organic quality.
Anyone who has suffered chronic pain understands that it's a game-changer; tasks that once seemed effortless -- from lifting or stretching to maintaining an upbeat demeanor -- require grimace-inducing exertion. Simply holding the question "Why me?" at bay often demands Herculean effort.
Since an undercover law enforcement officer struck Frank Strunk III's car at a stoplight three and a half years ago, the St. Petersburg artist has dealt with chronic pain. It's the kind of severe discomfort that causes Strunk, who supplements his earnings with carpentry work, to pause in the middle of physical effort as his eyes fill with tears. A stocky guy with a penchant for telling listeners exactly what's on his mind, Strunk just looks as though he has a high pain threshold -- but get him talking about the accident, and hurt and frustration saturate his voice.
Given the emotional intensity of his experience, it's surprising that Strunk has managed to channel his feelings into a new body of work where pain, process and change are delicately calibrated motifs -- present, but not overwhelming. A continuation of his longstanding interest in metal assemblage, the pieces -- along with more artwork in which pain plays a less visible role -- are on view through Nov. 1 at C. Emerson Fine Arts in downtown St. Pete.
Pieced together from metal rectangles and studded with rivets, Strunk's wall-mounted assemblages possess a clear connection to the organic, despite their industrial origins; their "skins" become a canvas where the artist orchestrates patches and swirls of oxidation. In pieces where pain serves as the literal subject matter, indicated by the title, representation sometimes rears its head -- as in "Spine and Shoulder", where a long hook-like swath of rust suggests a path of inflammation coursing from the shoulder down the backbone of an abstracted body.
But even in pieces like "Intersected," where the seams of metal fragments join to create a scar worthy of Frankenstein, the strange seductiveness of Strunk's surfaces -- whether crusty with rust or smoothly rippled -- lightens the work's occasionally heavy mood. In "Liberated Flow", gentle waves of coppery oxidation chase away any thoughts but those of ethereal beauty.
To regard all of Strunk's work through a lens of pain would shortchange it. The exhibit's kinetic pieces (there are three of them) evince wry humor about the Promethean nature of life more than they dwell on the hopelessness of suffering. One such piece arranges eight hammers around a wooden wheel; as a motorized crank moves them up and down, the hammers strike the same set of nails in perpetuity with an occasional creak or whine.
A multi-channel video installation uses life's brevity and monotony as its subject matter -- again, with a witty twist that keeps the artwork in the territory of black humor. The video, which intermittently features an animated X-ray skeleton jogging in place, peers out from dark-stained boxes surrounded by wrenches and hand-drills. I take it as an expression of the artist's commitment to finding purpose to life in the connection between his materials and the mental and physical processes he uses to shape them -- pain or no pain.
Judging by the offerings at Geometry, Life, Rust, these days Strunk is living up to that old Nietzschean maxim: What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.
Frank Strunk III is sharing his work in an upcoming gallery that is very personal to him, although he still manages to make connections with every audience. Through his art collections he is having a personal dialogue with the viewers. In this gallery he is show casing his talents, energy and inspiration with the general public.
The art in Frank Strunk III gallery is inspired by an accident that left him badly injured. Due to our cultural upbringing men in our society have been taught to be tough and not express any feelings of pain, Frank Strunk III however has found a different avenue to express his pain through his art. It is very moving, and shouldn't be missed.
"Siren From a Rusted Sea," a steel, copper, brass and aluminum piece by Frank Strunk II
Industrial artist Frank Strunk III is best known by CL readers as the two-time "Best Wearable Art" award winner. His memorable creations pretty much put Dunedin Fine Art Center's annual Wearable Art Show on the map and made it a must-do annual art event. But Strunk's creativity stretches well beyond industrialized couture -- he uses his carpentry skills to create working kinetic sculptures, installations and mixed-media metal works that he lacquers, splashes with various mystery chemicals, dyes, and sometimes even sets afire to achieve his vision. In his new solo exhibit, Geometry, Life, Rust at C. Emerson Fine Arts, Strunk shows certain works that have never been given gallery treatment -- like his rotating hammer-and-nails sculpture -- as well as a new series of pieces that speak of Strunk's ongoing struggle with bodily pain. The works are on display through Nov. 1, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tues.-Sat., 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com.
"Nga in Tru Vu's Garden -- Saigon, Vietnam," a litho-monotype by Lee Lee
The Human Condition is the latest show at C. Emerson Fine Arts. The featured group of artists -- Lee Lee, Rebecca Skelton, C. Wade Brickhouse, Daniel Mrgan, Marianne Chapel and several others -- took their creative cue from the conceptual question, "What is the human condition?" The resulting show includes installations, collage, drawing, painting, photography, mixed media, printmaking, sculpture and wood burning. Through Sept. 27, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com.
"Combat Medic's Mom," a pencil, blood, shotgunned canvas and raw silk that has been burnt with coals, by Lee Lee, on display in The Human Condition, at C. Emerson Fine Arts.
C. EMERSON FINE ARTS, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com. Upcoming: The Human Condition, collage, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, wood burning and more by Kyan Bishop, C. Wade Brickhouse, Wendy Dickinson, Eva Eun-Sil Han, Betsy Lester, Daniel Mrgan, Rebecca Skelton and others, Aug. 29-Sept. 27. Frank Strunk III, a solo exhibition, Oct. 3-Nov. 1. Patrick Lindhardt and Flatstone Studios, Nov. 7-Dec. 24. Martha Whittington, a solo exhibition, Jan. 9-Feb. 28.
Nancy Cervenka's sculptural use of 35mm film material. C. Emerson Fine Arts' "Film Lingual II" is an exploration of photography, video and hybrids of the two mediums.
Mixed media show C. Emerson Fine Arts' "Film Lingual II" is an exploration of photography, video and hybrids of the two mediums. In many instances, the medium itself delivers the message, like in Nancy Cervenka's sculptural use of 35mm film. The gallery is at 909 Central Ave. , St. Petersburg. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. (727) 898-6068; c-emersonfinearts.com
By Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic
In print: Thursday, July 31, 2008
Nancy Cervenka’s sculptural use of 35mm film material
C. Emerson Fine Arts' "Film Lingual II" is an exploration of photography, video and hybrids of the two mediums. In many instances, the medium becomes an unexpected vehicle in delivering the message, as in Nancy Cervenka's sculptural use of 35mm film material (above) or Rebecca Sexton Larson's pinhole photographs (left), which are more paintings than prints. Both remind us that photographic manipulation was an aesthetic issue long before it became a technical term. Other artists are Carolina Cleere, M.K. Foltz, Corey George, Tim Kennedy, Matt Larson, Matthew Lindhardt, Austin Nelson, Dana Plays, Beth Reynolds, Margaret Steward and Joe Walles. The gallery is at 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. (727) 898-6068; c-emersonfinearts.com.
"Self Encounter Group," Joe Walles, on display at C. Emerson Fine Arts.
Two complementary exhibits featuring film and photographic artworks open in downtown St. Petersburg this weekend -- and each offers a different viewpoint from the same curator. At C. Emerson Fine Arts, gallery owner Lori Johns dons her experimental hat, unveiling Film Lingual II, a showcase of video projections and mixed media installations that aim to reprise the success of a similar show last year. At Nova 535 Art Lounge, where Johns acts as guest curator, Coming Into Focus takes a back-to-basics approach with photographic still lifes, landscapes and portraits where composition and attention to detail are emphasized over edgy effects. Nova follows up with a series of film screenings featuring established and emerging local and national artists through July and August. Film Lingual II, through Aug. 16, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed.-Sat., C. Emerson Fine Arts 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com; and Coming Into Focus, through Sept. 6, with a free film screening hosted by Dana Plays at 7:30 p.m. Mon., July 21, open Mondays and by appointment only, Nova 535 Art Lounge, 535 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N., St. Petersburg, 727-821-6682, nova535.com.
By Lennie Bennett, Times Art Critic
Published Tuesday, April 8, 2008 6:05 PM
ST. PETERSBURG
React.
Such an interesting word.
And such an interesting exhibition at C. Emerson Fine Arts that takes the word for its title. My dictionary lists six related meanings for "react" and all of them apply to the eight artists in this show in one form or another.
In a group of collages, Eva Eun-Sil Han, a South Korean who currently lives in Belgium, responds to the cultural legacy of that northern European city. Familiar images found in religious paintings and still lifes from the Renaissance are cut and pasted into bizarre new configurations that suggest a torrent of confusing associations one would experience in an alien country.
As a Croatian living in Florida, Daniel Mrgan also transplanted himself to a foreign country, but his simple drawings couldn't be further stylistically from Han's dense collages. The four in this show are wood burnings. They're contained moments of imagination that spring from common turns of phrase, riffed and tweaked with wit. Remember the old saw about grabbing a tiger by the tail, an exhortation about taking risks? Here's Mrgan's take on it in Grab This: A tiger bites down on a stick, wielding scissors already fixed on its tail. Another paw stands ready with bandages. A bird covers its eyes, unable to watch the self-mutilation. Moral of the story is . . . Go for it? Don't? Don't know. Or all of the above.
Lee Lee was born in Colorado and still lives there, but she has a broad world view shaped by her travels. Works from several series created after visits to Cuba, Myanmar (also known as Burma) and India, for example, address social issues she encountered in each country. Yet they are more observations of conditions than politically loaded statements. The "Torched Angels" series came from a visit to Havana graveyards. She photographed angel statues and transformed them into dense mixed media pieces on paper. A partial meltdown by a blowtorch renders them battered but still intact, like so much of the country in which the statues reside. A single, new work shows her drafting skill: a drawing of a woman Lee met in Bosnia whose son is a combat medic. The mother is surrounded by scorched paper (the artist likes singeing her surfaces a lot) and fabric fragments that give her the appearance of being in the middle of an exploding bomb. Her expression remains impassive; the violence is a future fear playing out in her mind. Gallery owner Lori Johns says that this is the first in a new series Lee will be showing later in the year.
After a fire about three months ago that destroyed his Dunedin studio and almost his entire body of current work, Denis Gaston could be expected to produce some grim work. On the contrary, the two oil and acrylic paintings on paper have an unexpected lightness and playfulness. Sister Moon and Moon Coin Jig have a density of layers that are transparent enough to allow them all to show through, even to the drawings Gaston has painted over, giving them a physical complexity that contrasts with the simplicity of the images. He said in a telephone interview that they were in progress before the fire, on his work table.
"For some reason, I put them in a drawer in my metal flat file that day. They were among the very few to survive."
So glad they did.
C. Wade Brickhouse has the most conceptual works in the show. Small, nicely finished wood planks are mounted with rusty found objects and paired with thick, squishy-looking paper that is sometimes overlaid with thinner embossed paper. They're both rich and cerebral in their celebration of form and texture.
The most literal interpretations of the exhibition's theme come from Rebecca Sexton Larson and Frank Strunk III in the reactive processes used to create their work. Strunk's metal sculptures are composed from sheets of metal he subjects to various surface finishes. Rivets are used to connect the sheets and as artistic tropes that guide the eye across the plane. The best of three is Convexed, a curved panel nodding toward Richard Serra.
Finding where photography ends and painting begins in Larson's work is almost impossible. She uses both to meld old and new images, personal and public references for her lovely hybrids. The darkroom nuances she coaxes from negatives made from a pinhole camera are enhanced in her prints with sometimes impenetrable details. Figuring them all out is beside the point; swallow them whole for a visual feast.
Reaction here is not limited to the art and artists. Paula Allen's cast of ceramic characters, clustered like village eccentrics against a painted backdrop, beg us to play with them, to move them around in new combinations and relationships to each other. You're encouraged to do so by the artist.
That, of course, is the most visceral way we are invited to react to this exhibition. Like all art, the more it asks of us, the more it gives.
Lennie Bennett can be reached at (727) 893-8293 or lennie@sptimes.com.
Art should evoke a response, whether it's anger, appreciation, awe or just huh?. That's the idea behind React, a new exhibit at C. Emerson Fine Arts designed to spark a wide range of thoughts and feelings in viewers. The premise has a double meaning in that some of the works on view incorporate materials subjected to natural reactions: Daniel Mrgan's drawings, made by meticulously burning images into wood, depict surreal and whimsical figures; and age and patina bring weighty character to Frank Strunk III's metal sculptures. Also on display are Paula Allen, C. Wade Brickhouse, Denis Gaston, Eva Eun-Sil Han, Lee Lee and Rebecca Sexton Larson. An opening reception takes place from 6 to 9 p.m. Fri., April 4. The exhibit runs through April 26, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed.-Sat., C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com.
Neverne Covington has a gift for making the mysteries of everyday life. I, for one, will never look at my static shrubbery in the same way after seeing her interpretations of native plants as mystical objects alive with some sort of inner life that goes beyond botany. See new work by the artist at C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, that includes prints, paintings and drawings and really new "books" she has made using rusted tin ceiling tiles. She presses paper into them, and exposes the paper to rain so that the paper becomes imprinted with their patterns. She adds to the images with drawings, intaglios and lithographic images printed over them. They're bound with the tiles as covers.
A free opening reception is from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday; there's a free gallery talk by the artist at 7 p.m. Saturday. Regular gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday and Tuesday,10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. (727) 898-6068 or www.c-emersonfinearts.com.
Few traditions extend as far back in human history as the urge to make visual art, but drinking tea may be one of them. Cultivated in Asia for centuries—and riding a current wave of popularity in the U.S.—the idea of tea is rich with diverse associations, from the timeless ceremony to new age health remedies. “Every time you ask somebody, they have a different idea about tea,” said Lori Johns, owner of C. Emerson Fine Arts.
In January, the St. Petersburg gallery takes on tea with an exhibit of installations, sculpture, ceramics, photography, and more by ten artists devoted to the leafy brew’s myriad meanings. For Georgia artist Bridget Conn, tea is an avenue back to the lost tradition of family meals, but for St. Pete’s Wade Brickhouse, it’s motivation for making sleek, geometric vessels. Don’t miss an opening reception with teas served in handmade cups by local ceramic artist Charlie Parker.
Tea runs Jan. 11-Feb. 23 with an opening reception on Fri.,
Jan. 11, 6-9 p.m. C. Emerson Fine Arts is located at 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. For more information, call 727-898-6068 or
go to c-emersonfinearts.com. — Megan Voeller
This show opens Friday, Nov. 30, with a reception from 6-9 p.m.
Matthew Lindhardt
Father and son artists Matthew and Patrick Lindhardt share an obsession with exploring places that are paradoxically mundane and fantastical at the same time. (They just reach their destinations in very different ways.)
Patrick, a master printer and professor at Ringling College of Art and Design, crafts careful drawings and prints that spin yarns about an imaginary place not unlike the Minnesota of his youth. The narratives are alternately prosaic, puzzling, apocalyptic, and disjointed—but they’re always evocatively illustrated and often downright entertaining.
Patrick Lindhardt
Matthew’s work (shown at the top of the post) is new to me, so I’m looking forward to this exhibit. From what I’ve seen, he too captures dream-like experiences a dimension or two removed from reality—but through photography.
Escapes: Matthew and Patrick Lindhardt
Runs Nov. 30 through Dec. 29
C. Emerson Fine Arts
909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg
727-898-6068 c-emersonfinearts.com
St. Petersburg sets the creative stage this weekend with three separate and distinct art shows. The artastic fun kicks off at C. Emerson Fine arts with Escapes, an exhibit of surreal and extraordinary landscape prints and abstract photographs by father-son artists Patrick and Mathew Lindhardt. The 12th Annual Holiday Members' Show at St. Petersburg Clay Company features a great range of works by more than 80 ceramic artists. And Bluelucy creative duo Chad Mize and Phillip Clark host an open house party and exhibit new works during SpaceWalk this Sunday. An array of designer graphic tees are offered for $10 or less in addition to "prizes and surprises" all afternoon, and Creative Loafing's newly re-covered newspaper boxes -- which have been creatively embellished by several local artists -- will be unveiled before being moved to various key locations around the Bay area. Escapes,through Dec. 29, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, free admission, 727-898-6068;Members' Show,Through Dec. 2, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sun., 420 22nd St. S., St. Petersburg, free admission, 727-896-2529; andSpaceWalk,Sun., Dec. 2, 4-9 p.m., 750 35th Ave. S., St. Petersburg, free admission.
In "Spirituality and Materialism," nine artists use a variety of techniques to depict viewpoints in a philosophical debate with no ultimate conclusion.
By Susan King, Special to the Times
Published November 22, 2007
ST. PETERSBURG
The current show at C. Emerson Fine Arts is small in physical scale, but it invites major ponderings. Can spirituality and materialism exist together? Or are they contradictory strivings? What is the role of spirituality in these materialistic times?
The nine featured artists delve into the topic in different ways, tackling themes that range from the environmental impact of our consumer society to seeking the spiritual in ethereal landscapes.
Topanga Canyon Altar by Oregon artist Phyllis Davidson juxtaposes the sacred and profane, creating a kitschy East meets West tableau. Mother Mary presides over this scene with a backdrop of hot-pink flowers and Chinese figures painted on silk. A nude dipped in gold with Medusalike hair, and a candleholder with the body of an exotic woman flank the Japanese god of long life.
St. Petersburg artist Frank Strunk III constructs a big piece of shiny money out of aluminum and invites viewer participation. Push a button and a lazy mechanical device polishes the almighty dollar. It's about owning more and showing off.
Material possessions and issues of identity merge with psychological subtlety in mixed media installations by Betsy Orbe Lester, also of St. Petersburg. What could be more quotidian than shoes and home? Instead of Dorothy's ruby slippers, she presents papier-mache pumps covered in butterfly designs and redheaded sewing pins. The surreal footwear displays itself on an upside-down doll house roof.
In Open to Change, local artist Chalet Comellas employs silhouettes of tree frogs repeated on several panels. An outline of a delicate frog faces the ground, possibly reminding us that we share the earth.
Bay area artist Leslie Neumann's meditative landscapes invite the experience of being present. Forget about the "monkey mind" and those chores and holiday shopping lists. Melt into her encaustic paintings, made from a process in which hot wax meets oil paint. Like some of the sublime, edgier paintings by English landscape artist J. M. W. Turner, land and sea border on the abstract. Enter the white light of Amorphous, take in the golden and stormy in Summer Skies or absorb the energy that crackles in Electrical Storm. Get lost in the texture, drips and colors of earth, fire, sky and sea.
A group show lends itself to juxtapositions. You can hunt for the affirmative "yes" scratched into the wax in Neumann's paintings, then glance to your right to see Wendy Dickinson's three big black X's called Girl Marks. Dickinson's collograph has X's stamped onto wood with a design fashioned out of stockings.
They face off with a photo of a prostitute's grave, Louise the Unfortunate by Diana Lucas Leavengood of St. Petersburg. Photographer Margaret Steward presents us with rows of little Buddhas, blurring as they get closer in Buddha's March.
In brushstrokes that are sure and varied, Colorado artist Lee Lee paints a figure that exudes strength and spirit in Angkor Shrine. In her next four canvases she depicts the impact of unbridled materialism. In Pine, burnt orange and red loosely painted on various views of trees look like raging fires. But the rusty substance is created by beetles that multiply with rapidly warming temperatures, destroying the pines.
Susan King is a St. Petersburg writer completing her master's in art history at USF. She may be reached at susanking2006@tampabay.rr.com.
REVIEW
Spirituality and Materialism
Continues through Saturday at C. Emerson Fine Arts, 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday;noon to 8 p.m. Saturday. 727 898-6068.
19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche announced, "God is dead," most people had the good sense not to take him too literally. One hundred years later, it's clear that God (or various permutations thereof) is still very much alive -- even if many of us have chosen to worship a host of idols (e.g., the iPhone, Gianni Versace, or reality television). The modern tension between earthly temptations and otherworldly revelations creates an intriguing premise for Spirituality and Materialism, an exhibition of artwork by nine artists at C. Emerson Fine Arts. Check out Diana Lucas Leavengood's eerie photograph of a discarded plastic baby doll or Frank Strunk III's kinetic dollar bill buffer. Other artists include Chalet Comellas, Phyllis Davidson, Wendy Dickinson, Lee Lee, Betsy Orbe Lester, Leslie Neumann, and Margaret Steward. An opening reception occurs from 6 to 9 p.m. Sat., Nov. 3. Through Nov. 24, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-8 p.m. Sat., 909 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, 727-898-6068, c-emersonfinearts.com.
Art becomes a family affair this month at C. Emerson Fine Arts (c-emersonfinearts.com), also in downtown St. Pete. Sculptures by Sarasota-based Mark Anderson, interim chair of Ringling College of Art and Design's Fine Arts department, mingle with drawings by his son, Jarrod Anderson, an emerging artist living in New York. The resulting show, Interstice, which runs through Oct. 26, makes for a harmonious conversation between two very different artists.
The elder Anderson's aluminum and bronze sculptures of human faces in gentle contact dominate the space, in part because more than two dozen slightly different permutations of them are mounted on the gallery walls. The effect is less one of repetition than an unsettling accumulation of presence, eerily disembodied. A related sort of existential stillness characterizes the younger Anderson's painstaking graphite drawings on slick paper coated with latex paint, which depict floating fragments of his jumbled, post-adolescent apartment. The most affecting include truncated bits of his figure, like an arm grasping a gun-shaped saw or a T-shirt-clad (but armless and legless) torso with an erection.
All Recurrences 
