Artists explore who we are in Art Center Sarasota show ‘Faces and Places’

Visual art answers many questions. “Who?” and “Where?” are the focus of the “Faces and Places” regional exhibition at Art Center Sarasota, which called for art reflecting the artists local habitations and identities. 173 Florida-based artists responded and the work you will see draws from their submissions. The works were juried by Amanda Cooper, chief curator at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg.

Karla Pirona’s “Southgate” (2022), which won the First Place award, is a richly detailed oil painting of the modernist marquee at Southgate Shopping Center in Lakeland, not the one in Sarasota. Pirona’s piece is definitely not paint-by-numbers. Let’s start with proportions. The painting has the panoramic aspect ratio of a wide-screen movie, like a freeze-frame of a letterboxed, director’s cut. What seems photographic across the room looks painterly up close. A scene of lush colors and impressionist sunbeams.

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But Pirona’s framing of the image is also outside-the-box. The mall entrance is the focus of the painting. Typically, it should dominate the canvas’ illusory window. But Pirona has relegated it to the bottom right, in a view from across the parking lot – a cropped view, slicing through the cars in the foreground. A sky of stratocumulus clouds receding in perspective fills most of the painting. Pirona’s artwork breaks the rules of landscape painting, architectural rendering (and photography, for that matter). It’s definitely something else.

Second Place went to Li Volk’s “Shane” (2021), a charcoal-on-paper portrait of a reporter based in the Philippines. The woman’s face is in sharp detail. Here, the technique is amazingly realistic; hair, eyes, shadows and modeling are all in high-resolution, like a high-grain, black and white photograph. Moving out from Shane’s face, the edges of the image blur like a rain-splashed window. Volk’s technique becomes more gestural. Smears of charcoal create rhythmic patterns for their own sake. The combined result is a beautiful mash-up of representation and abstraction.

David Fithian’s oil-on-canvas “Quiet Pool” (2021) took third place. This slice of summertime reveals a pool with no party. A scene on a terrace: pool, waterslide, and beach chairs rendered in subtropical colors and playful geometry. It evokes the Sarasota School hotels on Lido Key in the 1960s – the Three Crowns, maybe. The only thing missing is people, although the painting’s point of view works for a diver on a platform, looking down and ready to jump in.

Honorable mentions went to Brian Jones’ “Pink” (a photo of a hot-pink, right-angled modernist building emblazoned with loopy graffiti); Tony Souza’s “Federal Style Living Room” (an acrylic-on canvas painting of a textured, gilded interior, as detailed as an elaborate dollhouse); Alaina Pompa’s “Sunday Float at Siesta” (a multilayered, multicolored, multimedia piece depicting two girls on the beach at sunset); and Nika Zusin’s witty “Home” (a plastic sculpture of severe, industrial angles, its only organic form a golden figure drooping his head on the wall like Charlie Brown).

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Merit awards went to Tony Reinemann’s “Danger on a Sutton Place Terrace” (a pencil-on-paper scene of a feral falcon eyeing a flat full of cats) and Gianna Santucci’s “Bottoms Up!” (an oil-on-canvas painting of four uninhibited friends raising a toast).

The show’s official winners are a small, if not-so-random sample. Some artists took the “Faces and Places” theme literally. Others flipped it around to places of the heart and faces in the mind’s eye. There’s sophisticated work here – along with some playful eye candy that drew the attention of some kids taking an art class. According to Kinsey Robb, the Art Center’s executive director, they were counting the paintings inside one of Tony Souza’s paintings.

What was her take on the show? Delight? Relief? Surprise?

“All of the above,” she said, “Doing a regional art show always makes me nervous, especially at the tail end of a pandemic! I kept asking myself, ‘Will we get a response?’ The answer was an overwhelming ‘Yes.’ We received so many outstanding pieces. Amanda Cooper did an amazing job of selecting the best of the best.”

Once “Faces and Places” ends on Aug. 6, Art Center Sarasota will launch a new season Sept. 1-30 with “POP!” a celebration of pop art.

‘Faces and Places’

Through Aug. 6, at Art Center Sarasota, 707 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota; 941-365-2032; artsarasota.org ­­­

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Art Center Sarasota show explores people, places and where we are