Sheree Rensel. Twingo. Copper and mixed media on wood. 11-3/4″ x 11-3/4″ x 3″. Artist’s statement: “Twingo” is the unique and original tweet language of Twitter Tweople. Bio: BFA, MFA, Detroit artist born, NOW living and loving my art life in the real and virtual Universe.
If you’re following St. Petersburg artist Sheree Rensel on [...]

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Tes One’s spray-paint-on-wood painting measures 10-ft. by 11-ft.
You know what they say: when the going gets tough, the tough get…bigger?
Despite the ongoing economic malaise—which seems to find Florida in a particularly compromising position—St. Petersburg artist and art party impresario John Vitale isn’t giving up. Though the muralist and owner of Vitale Studio recently downsized [...]

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Image courtesy Polk Museum of Art
This weekend, the Polk Museum of Art celebrates the debut of its recently acquired Art-O-Mat with an interactive talk by Art-O-Mat founder and creator Clark Whittington.
Whittington, a conceptual artist based in Winston-Salem, NC, first hatched the Art-O-Mat idea for an exhibition in 1997, when he transformed a dilapidated cigarette machine [...]

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Andy Warhol. Flowers (1970), screenprint. ©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, NY. On Loan from Bank of America’s Art in Our Communities Program.
At the outset of writing anything about Andy Warhol, it seems like a sure bet that nothing new can be said. Nothing, anyway, that hasn’t already been better articulated by scholars, [...]

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Jeremy Chandler. Couple at the Fair. Image courtesy of the artist.
First there was Beth Reynolds’ documentation of Tampa life in heterogeneous form—from the flamenco dancer to the crab fisherman. Then came Suzanne Camp Crosby’s more surreal take on the city’s character—think headless mannequins in period costume arranged on the veranda of Plant Hall. Next, [...]

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Wallpaper design (detail) by Anthony Zollo. Image courtesy of the artist.
For a couple of years now, Florida Craftsmen has been organizing a series of exhibitions that explore a single theme: living with art and fine craft. Despite their conceptual commonality, the exhibits couldn’t be more diverse. At Home With Crafts, the inaugural effort in 2007, [...]

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Image courtesy Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten and Leslie Fry
Tuesday evening marks the public debut of a collaborative project between St. Petersburg-based artist Leslie Fry and Austrian artist Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten at the Studio@620. The pair met via email and Skype earlier this year then teamed up for an intense, ten-day collaboration in St. Petersburg. During Tuesday’s opening reception [...]

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Albrecht Dürer. Adam and Eve (1504). Engraving, collection of the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany.
Head on over to the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg today (Sunday, 1-5 p.m.) for a final glimpse of Albrecht Dürer: Art in Transition, Masterpieces from the Graphic Collection of the Hessian State Museum. The exhibition of the Renaissance [...]

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Pan Yue. Time Transfixed. 2008, digital print. Image courtesy Eli Klein Fine Art, New York.
[This is a great little show that I could visit again and again (and probably will before it closes in early May). -MV]
Though the recent frenzy to acquire Chinese contemporary art has cooled with the global recession, the 21st century [...]

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Gregory Barsamian, Untitled, 1999, 4’h x 7’ dia., Courtesy of the Artist.
Visitors to artist Gregory Barsamian’s exhibition at the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland will likely notice something remarkable even before they set foot in a gallery. To host Unbelievable Transformations, an unusual showcase of kinetic sculpture, the museum’s airy exhibition spaces have been [...]

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Sensory Overload 4.0 has come and gone, but you can watch video of the event on YouTube (above) and check out pictures on Flickr (click on the image of artist Valerie George below). Congratulations to the judges’ choice winner of the student competition, Thomas Pregiato, Ringling College of Art and Design, and the audience favorite [...]

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3D rendering from Giancarlo Giusti’s Occupiable Highways
For the past two years, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing the artists who participated in Creative Loafing’s Sensory Overload and writing about their work in advance of the event—but I’ve never been involved in planning the annual art-music-performance party. This year, after CL staffers decided that Sensory Overload [...]

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