Author: Laura

A Conversation With Two Artists

Correspondent Esther Hammer can be reached at [email protected]

If you still crave a nature fix but are more interested in standing under an air-conditioning vent than the blazing sun, consider a visit to two area galleries where landscape paintings bring the outside indoors. Landscapes became a popular genre in the prephotography days when people wanted reminders of places visited or armchair travelers wanted to dream of places only imagined.

Thomas Murray delves into a mythological exploration of a garden in a series titled “Archetyptonics” at Studio@620, 620 First Ave. S, St. Petersburg. Loaded with references to goddesses — and be aware that the show contains nudity — Murray’s paintings also depict a lush paradise such as this one. The show continues through May 22. Gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Free. [email protected].

Taylor Ikin and Laura Waller offer more literal versions of the great outdoors in an exhibition at Nuance Galleries, 804 S Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa. Ikin paints on a plastic paper called YUPO that gives her watercolors a high gloss. Recently, she has been roaming Hillsborough County for unspoiled pockets of natural beauty as her subject. Waller, who also works in watercolors, often record her travels. She has applied her impressionist style to the Maine landscape in this new series. The show continues through May 31. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Free.

South Tampa artists Taylor Ikin and Laura Waller have exhibited together for four years. Both are watercolorists, but their individual styles are worlds apart. Waller tends toward smaller paintings; Ikin toward larger ones. Waller paints on a traditional toothed surface; Ikin paints exclusively on Yupo, a slick, shiny synthetic surface originally designed for the paper industry. Waller employs a soft touch that lends her paintings a soothing, flowing feel; Ikin drenches her paper with colors, using them almost like oils, then manipulates them to give the final piece movement and texture. In this case, contrast is a good thing. It gives their latest exhibit, “What’s New,” opening Saturday at Nuance Galleries in South Tampa, those elusive elements of excitement and curiosity. Waller, who said her style falls somewhere between realism and impressionism, brings her love of travel into her paintings, recalling people and places she has visited in Europe, Iceland and the United States. She recently renewed her love of the French Quarter in New Orleans.

“I love any place where people are gathering,” she said. “I’m eclectic in taste, but I love painting people.” Every fall she goes to Maine and paints in the Rockland area, but last week she tried a different locale. She took “the back logging roads in Millinocket, Maine, into the wilderness and painted these absolutely gorgeous rivers and streams with Mount Kalahdin in the background,” she said. Ikin, who has been called the Yupo Queen, was among the first artists to experiment with Yupo as a painting surface for fine art, and has been painting on it and teaching others her technique for 11 years. “It’s sort of like a paintbrush on roller skates,” she said. “You load a brush, like you put on your shoes, and once it touches the surface, there’s a tremendous action without moving very much. It skips, it slips, it slides and bounces and it will roll and twist and run in any direction if you’re prepared to tilt the surface.” Controlling activity is the tricky part, and also part of the fun, she said. “What doesn’t please me I can take my brush and then scoot right through the paint right back to the white surface of the paper and remove it,” she said. “Basically my style of painting is I’m a lifter. I put it down and lift it out.” Her recent collection, “The Road Less Traveled,” opened at the Dunedin Fine Art Center in January and closed in early March. The collection highlighted forgotten and beautiful areas in Florida. Many of the pieces from that collection can be seen in the “What’s New” exhibit at Nuance. Meet both artists and compare and contrast their works at an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Nuance, 804 S. Dale Mabry Highway. The exhibit runs through May 31. Call the gallery at (813) 875-0511 for information. Graduates offer an exhibit of variety Student art shows abound this time of year as graduates display their sharpened skills. University of Tampa’s graduating seniors will present a multimedia exhibit May 6-8 at the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery on campus. Added to the usual two-dimensional pieces this year are sculptures, installations and live performances. Hannah Hudson’s installation “Family Dinner” brings the environmental “green” message to the dinner table with grass serving as the table top. Jeff Gibbons presents several sculptures and also turns himself into a clay man for a performance piece called “Who’s Sorrows.” Meet the artists and see their work at a free reception from 7 to 9 p.m. May 7 at the gallery in the R.K. Bailey Art Studios, 301 N. Boulevard. For information, call (813) 253-6217. Get kids’ point of view at photography museum As part of an ongoing outreach program, Literacy through Photography, the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts partnered with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay to give cameras to 80 students in grade school through high school. The students were encouraged to explore their neighborhood through the camera’s lens. The visual and verbal results of their efforts are revealed in a one-night exhibit, “My Club, My Place, My Point of View,” featuring selected works from each student. Museum members and their guests may view the works and meet some of the artists at an awards reception from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday.Nonmembers may become members that night. Call (813) 221-2222 for information.

Correspondent Esther Hammer can be reached at [email protected].