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Gallery presents annual members show

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: June 17, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Progress Energy Art Gallery's new director, Nancy Ciesla, faced a daunting task right out of the gate.

It's difficult enough to set up an exhibition of a single artist, or a handful of artists who work in the same medium, let alone trying to figure out how to arrange 60-plus pieces from up to 20 different artists whose work spans a wide range of media and an even wider range of styles.

But that's the challenge of staging an exhibition like the gallery's third annual Member Artists' Exhibition, taking a visual smorgasbord and creating something that exceeds the sum of its parts. That's also the reward for visitors who walk through the exhibition; appreciation for each piece on its own merit is enhanced by the sheer variety surrounding it. If there is an "artists' statement" to an exhibition like this, it is a joyful proclamation of the endless range of human creativity.

The gallery's multiroom layout helps ingest in the feast in courses, with the first room alone offering an intriguing variety that invites comparisons from one artists' work to another, not as a matter of whose work is "better," but to the added appreciation for them all. One can study the use of bright color and textures in Terry Kinderman's mixed media abstracts then make a sudden aesthetic shift to Suzanne Holland "frame-within-a-frame" miniature artworks.

One wall features the work of several photographers. Visitors can consider the wildlife shots of Cheryl Mollenor, which somehow project a sense of humanity in their animal subjects. The eye can then segue to Karren Tolliver's cool black-and-white study of musical instruments, a decided contrast to Erica Urbanovitch's color series of wild mushrooms, which in turn contrasts with Paula Showen's old-fashioned looking portrait of a woman playing guitar.

The game of compare and contrast seems to be inevitable as one exits the front gallery, with Ralph Annan's pop-art, comic strip-style depictions lining the archway leading to the next gallery, the "Victorian Room," where large-scale, classical-style portraits by Matthew Ellrod transport the atmosphere of the exhibition back at least two centuries.

The viewer quickly returns to the here and now in the next gallery, which Ciesla unofficially calls the "man's room," featuring mostly three-dimensional art. Here again, the infinity of creativity is subtly celebrated by side-by-side entries made from wood - the linear wall-hangings of Lloyd Johnson and the undulating sculptures of Harry Farmlett.

Though the rear gallery has a unifying "tropical paradise" theme, there is still an eclectic mix of sensibilities, from the gentle nostalgia of Gladys DePrias' "old Florida" to C.W. Tanner's scuba-inspired fantasies.

In the gallery hall, Michelle Collins' acrylic mosaics look like authentic medieval Christian iconography, wildly contrasting with the free-flowing collages of B.J. White-Myers hanging nearby.

The variety of artwork induces the viewer to study each piece in greater detail, where more fun can be found, from the working clock within one of White-Myers' collages; to the small detail that defines Ellrod's life-size "Early Retirement" to the thick wood frame on Maryangela Smith's "Seascape" that turns out not to be a frame at all.

There are more surprises and more artists in the exhibition, and as with a buffet, each customer's plate will look different, but everyone will get their fill. Progress Energy Art Gallery's third annual Member Artists' Exhibition runs through July 31.

The gallery, at 6321 Grand Blvd., New Port Richey, is open from noon until 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

Klint Lowry can be reached at 727-815-1067 or at klowry@suncoastnews.com.

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