The Hybrid Strategies 2.0 exhibit featuring ten noted Broward and Palm Beach county artists opened last Thursday night (May18, 2017) in a new space in Pompano Beach. Magnetic Gallery, the vision of curator Byron Swart was created to present innovative art in yet another venue supporting the cities mission to become a cultural destination. Swart a part of The Creative’s team, is also responsible for introducing important international, national and regional artists as the curator for the gallery located inside of Pompano’s new Cultural center.
Since my departure from teaching for 39 years I have been very fortunate to become more acquainted with Pompano’s art community. An appointment to the cities Public Art Committee for the past two years has introduced me to new wonderful lovers of art who are committed to making our community enriched through Public Art. I have also been very involved with The Bailey Contemporary Art Center participating in events there, and recently had a very successful one person show of my new work. Many, many more new viewers have been introduced to my art through the Bailey. It was a wonderful partnership and I thank all at BaCA for the opportunity to exhibit my work in their fantastic space .
Art is moving to the more eastern parts of the city. Wrapped traffic signal boxes and artist painted large scale sculptures of Pompano Fish are enjoyed throughout the city and more are being commissioned. Now, thanks to the Pompano Citi Center, space has been provided in a storefront to promote local and South Florida art.
I was pleased to be invited to be a guest curator in this new huge gallery space. The result is a reset of a show I organized in 2008, exhibited at the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale's gallery. That original exhibit was prophetic in that it was a new body of mixed media work as I gradually pulled away from painting with oil on canvas and was enjoying a new phase of experimentation due to health purposes.
Eight years later the artists in version 2.0 of the show have continued to make innovative mixed media art. The artists have enjoyed recognition in many areas including the Cultural Consortium Fellowship, whose art has been selected for prestigious local museum competitions and are extraordinary educators as well.
It was a pleasure to reconvene this group of talent for another look at art that opens itself to innovation and experimentation with varieties of media. The feedback I received throughout the opening night was overwhelmingly positive. The audience was engaged looking at the work.
Although very diverse in intent and approach to content and material I was very pleased with the cohesiveness of the exhibit. My belief that really good art despite its differences has inherent continuity based upon artists that continue to create works that continue to expand the vocabulary of art.
I am pleased to share images of opening night and will be sharing the actual artwork here in a later post. This is just a taste of some of the art but I would love to invite you to come to the gallery and experience the show for yourself. All works are for sale and are reasonably priced. Stop by and enjoy. The show continues through June 4.
Here are some images from the opening. Enjoy!
