The Cool Art Show

Coliseum interior

The 24th Cool Art show is in progress. I was there today, Saturday, July 21st. It is held in the St. Petersburg Coliseum, a remnant of WWII that normally hosts things like ballroom dancing. A huge quonset hut type building built in 1924, it has 13,000 sq. ft of oak floors and arched steel beams running from one side to the other overhead. It's worth going just to see the building's interior, but the place is filled with a wide variety of art and artists. Much like a quality outdoor art show held in the cool, air-conditioned indoors, this show has a unique flavor of its own.

The show is put on by PAVA, the professional association of visual artists [Link].

There are about eighty artists in the show, far too many for me to cover, but here's a selection...

James Michaels

Work by James Michaels

Painter James Michaels, whose work is in many private and museum collections, and who won Gasparilla in 2010, with one of his works. He does social realism, pop icons and expressionist work, sometimes combined. On the right is a pop expressionist painting of a robot toy iconized. These works go far beyond depiction and expression, delving into current personal foundation myths and much more. I witnessed kids running up to his work and proudly posing with it as siblings snapped away with their cell phones.

Misao Adachi

Traditional Japanese ways with Western influences characterize Misao Adachi's work. A lot of his work is about the Japanese coming of age ceremony, which takes place when women turn twenty years of age. The works are marked by attention to the formal aspects of the clothing, meaning, the ceremony, and transience. In the painting below left, all these aspects come into play. Note the figure is watching an ethereal looking paper balloon float away over the water.

Misao Adachi, "Reflection"

Rebecca Skelton is a premier draughtswoman, perhaps the best in our area. She can be seen standing surrounded by her work at left. Her drawings have many dimensions, including personal, expressive, philosophical, feminist and more ongoing simultaneously. Treat yourself and make time to spend with this work, even the small pieces.

 Full disclosure....another two of Rebecca's drawings found their way to my place today.

Sarah Thee Campagna and her work

Sarah Thee Campagna of Cybercraft Robots makes beautifully designed and executed artifacts from the future, each with an accompanying narrative. The work gleams and breathes with creative energy and has been rapidly evolving during the past two years. At the moment I am partial to the ray guns and the flying saucers. See more of Sarah's work here: [Link].

Work by Sarah Thee Campagna

On the left is Bruce Ferguson with this oil on wood painting " Red Roots, Skinny Water". His estuarine environment paintings of mangroves are luxurious expressive landscapes, or portraits of specific plants as only one who has spent thousands of hours in the water can see them..

Coralette Damme (c.) her work and two customers

In the interests of full disclosure, another of Coralette's works found its way home today. I had to wait a long time for the line to thin out to get this picture. I have reviewed her work many times in this space. It is strong, growing stronger, and still a bargain.








The show will be open on Sunday, July 22nd. Parking was fairly easy today, and the AC was just right. And it's free.

--- Luis