Keith Thomas, Young Liar, 2009. Oil on prepared cardboard.
Most artists I know make work inspired by their personal lives — even if the end product looks so abstract or conceptual that you’d be hard pressed to find evidence of human experience in it. Keith Thomas, perhaps, just takes a more direct route than some from [...]

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Customers browse at the Tampa Artist Emporium in South Tampa. Pictured below: Boggs stands behind the Emporium’s front desk.
Two years ago, Tampa photographer Shelby Boggs took a gamble. Inspired by the Kress Emporium, an historic building in Asheville, NC, that serves as a marketplace for more than 80 regional artists and craftspeople, she set [...]

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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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Denis Gaston. Little Boxes. Mixed media on masonite, 20″ x 16”. Pictured below: Denis Gaston. Ground Control To Major Tom (Grab ‘n Go Art Collection). Ink on paper, 7″ x 5″. Images courtesy of the artist.
If it’s summer, it must be time for the Cool Art Show. Any other time of year, the region would [...]

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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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Bruce Marsh, Riverwall (detail). Photo by Megan Voeller.
Downtown Tampa’s Riverwalk gained a public art cornerstone recently with the installation of Bruce Marsh’s Riverwall– a 40-foot long mural composed of photographic images of the Hillsborough River. Fired into porcelain enamel on steel plates, the images show the river– a 54-mile long waterway integral to the region’s [...]

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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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C. Emerson Fine Arts’ latest exhibit, Under the Influence, showcases the genre of contemporary art often dubbed ‘pop surrealism.’

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Not sure whether to think of this development as a thrilling breakthrough in the accessibility of art or yet another scary, scary reason why I will never be leaving my desk again. Now in Google Earth, tour the Prado Museum and a selection of its masterworks without crossing the Atlantic.
If you aren’t already a Google [...]

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Tonight’s the last chance to check out a performance by St. Petersburg-based “image-maker” Alice Ferrulo of Black Horse Theatre, whose creations meld theater, dance and visual art. Portraiture: In Three Movements is her take on Olivia, a composite personality inspired by portraits of former substance abusers by painter Thomas Murray (formerly of the Bay area, [...]

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Leslie Shows. The Au Layer/ Storm Reflecting in a Pool, 2008. Collage and acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, via SFGate.com.
If you don’t already keep an ear out for visiting artist/scholar talks at the University of South Florida’s College of Visual and Performing Arts on a regular [...]

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Tes One. Change We Made. 45”x60”, 2008.
Artworks by four Tampa Bay artists—Tes One, Bask and Phillip Clark and Chad Mize of Bluelucy—are headed to Washington, DC, where they will be featured in Manifest Hope, an exhibit celebrating the election of Barack Obama.
Shepard Fairey’s now-iconic, red-and-blue portrait of the president elect will serve as the [...]

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