Stacie Krupa’s “Sassy Spicy Soulmates- Seahorses, Sea Turtles & Salty, Socialite Friends” opens on Friday, September 2, at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center. Doors open at 6 p.m. for Art Walk, and the show continues through September 30. The Art Center is located at 2301 First Street, in the River District, downtown Fort Myers.

“As an only child, Animals became my pseudo-siblings. They were my best friends who never failed me,” Krupa says. “These paintings represent my best friends and all the fun I had playing with them. Painting to me is Pure Play. It’s a fun adventure every painting to see what evolves from manipulating materials. I use oils and acrylics, bold colors, charcoals, inks, iridescent mediums, wall spackling and glues to manipulate drips, washes and texture with various mediums.”

Stacie Krupa attended the University of Central Florida where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. As a student she worked in clinical environments where she could combine psychology with her artistic skills and knowledge. While she found great satisfaction in helping clients deal with addiction and develop coping and life skills, she decided to pursue her true passion. She began her education in fine art and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from UCF in 1994. She then attended a post-baccalaureate study program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia, the oldest art school in the United States, where notable artists such as Mary Cassat and Thomas Eakins had studied and worked. She later attended a prestigious graduate program at the Maryland Institute College of Art, on scholarship. She continued her graduate studies at the University of Miami, and in 2001 was awarded her Master of Fine Arts in Painting.

In 1996, she opened her first gallery, the Stacie Krupa Gallery, in Winter Park, Florida. This SoHo-style gallery was focused on providing investment level original art and education to residents and visitors in the metropolitan Orlando area. After moving to Islamorada in the Florida Keys in 1998, she opened the Stacie Krupa Studio Gallery of Art, built on the SoHo- style concept of the Orlando gallery. She recently opened Stacie Krupa’s Corner Grill Gallery of Sanibel. Krupa paints every day. Her trademark, intense gestures create large images, monochromatic shemes, and raw, edgy canvas creations that command attention and warrant repeated viewing. The sea-life of Islamorada has had significant impact on the direction of Krupa’s work over the last 11 years.

“I find my animals elegant and playful and soothing since they represent the oceanic environment that I love,” adds Krupa. “The sound of the ocean waves has always relaxed me and painting the oceanic environment and sea life is my happy.” She loves creating sea horses and sea turtles. “I find their anatomy fascinating and quirky.”

Come experience the intensity of this Islamorada artist and see what critics call her “bold, powerful, in-your-face” expressionistic paintings.

Remember 9-11 Tenth Year
Follow the Canvas

Internationally acclaimed artist Leoma Lovegrove
is embarking on a unique commemoration
of one of the darkest days in America’s history ~ September 11, 2001.
On this day, over 3,000 people lost their lives when our country was attacked.

Her vision is to have a billboard size canvas (10′ x 18′) travel to six locations in SW Florida. Each location will represent one of the locations where the 9/11 attack victims lost their lives that tragic day: the World Trade Center in New York City, American Airlines flight 93 which crashed in a field in PA, United Airlines flight 175 and American Airlines flight 11 which were flown by terrorists into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and American Airlines flight 77 which terrorists crashed into it.

Members of the public will paint the names of the victims from the 9/11 tragedy. The names of those who lost their lives will be differentiated by location through using different colors of paint. For example, those who perished at the World Trade Center will be shown in red, those on Flight 93 in dark blue and so on, layer upon layer.

When the names are completed, the canvas will be taken to the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre in Fort Myers where the Ten Year Commemorative Event will take place on September 11, 2011. During that event, artist Leoma Lovegrove will paint an American Bald Eagle superimposed on top of the names. The names thus are the basis of the painting and the completed painting of the eagle represents the strength
of our American heritage and an affirmation that freedom prevails.

The Remember 9-11 Tenth Year Art Project is a reminder that we must
never forget and never stop supporting the 9-11 families and survivors.

The first venue will be The Franklin Shops on July 1st during Art Walk. Names of those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center will be painted in red. At subsequent locations, different colors will be used for the names from the Pentagon and the four airplanes. Lovegrove will be there to assist with the painting of the names. Members of the NYPD 1013 Local groups and the American Airline Suncoast KIWI9/11 Memorial will also be there to speak with the crowds.

The canvas will be completed by Lovegrove during Remember 9-11 Tenth Year at the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre on Sept. 11, 2011, beginning at 11:30 a.m. Lovegrove and many others have partnered with her on this project to make sure that those who lost their lives are never forgotten and to honor those who conducted rescue efforts. Members of the NYPD 1013 Local will take part at the event as will members of American Airlines Suncoast KIWI9/11 Memorial.

There have been others like Gone Fishin, Trans, and Pose down just to name a few. If you know of others let us know.

Hopefully these biker chicks won’t be there.

“Poked in the Mind’s Eye: The Humorous Perspective of Doug MacGregor”

Opening Reception: Friday, May 6th, 5:00-7:00PM
Exhibiting: May 6-28
Gallery WALK & TALK w/ Doug MacGregor: May 18th, 1:30-2:30PM

On May 06, 2011, the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center will host its first solo exhibition by local resident and internationally renowned painter Marcus Jansen. His recent documentary, A Painters’s Allegory, will show during the reception and throughout the exhibition period.  The show opens at 6:00 p.m., during Art Walk, and runs through May 27, 2011.  The Art Center is located at 2301 First Street, in the River District, downtown Fort Myers.

Jansen is a citizen of the World, a Gulf War Veteran who managed to transform his life from a soldier at war to a soldier in the arts. Since 1997, he has been known for exploring modern settings and often graffiti urban landscapes that deliver social and political commentary of our contemporary world.

Jansen’s work has been published and noted in media publications such as Forbes Magazine, The New York Times, The Kuwait Times, Art News and Art in America Magazine. Work has been included in Who’s Who in American Art and Who’s Who in International Art. His collections include the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The Moscow Museum of Modern Art, (MMOMA), The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, as well as The New Britain Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian Institution. Jansen may be considered one of the most exciting new painters to emerge at the early part of the 21st Century and has created an international following. 

Jansen’s background is as complex as his art. A world traveler, his work demonstrates a rebellious spirit, an unusual and raw style that rejects traditional norms in painting. Over the last decade, Jansen’s paintings feel like a mix of urban street art crossed with expressionism from Germany. Jansen’s work shows viewers a raw usage of paint and swift interlocking texture changes that create a rhythm that draws viewers in. Jansen’s landscapes show strong North American influences, but he refers to them as universal in nature and not location specific. 

His work can be linked to Jansen’s history. He lived in the Bronx and Long Island in the 1970′s and often traveled to other boroughs of NY City on graffiti infested subway trains as a child. He was facinated by the large cartoon- like characters and letters that decorated those huge dull trains, transforming them into wonders of art. His father, a German businessman and student of history who had traveled widely in Germany, France and England as well as his West-Indien mother who was an artist and sang in choirs, had a strong lasting influence on Jansen’s work. Jansen moved to Germany in 1975, where he learned about German expressionism which made an impression early on during his visits to many European countries in the 1980′s. In 1986 he spent much time in the Netherlands, France and Italy and many other European capitals.

These experiences have found their ways into Jansen’s art, creating powerful visual images that tell stories about where and how people live. In 1990, Jansen joined the US Army and returned to the United States, and shortly afterwards he was assigned to Desert Storm. It was there he started experiencing difficulties from his combat experiences. He decided to dedicate his life to painting before being approached by Museum Director Jerome A. Donson. It was the beginning of a relationship that lasted for several years. Donson was quoted saying, “you are my last find,” shortly before he passed in 2009. He directed many traveling exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) NY, working closely with painters like Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning. Donson was also the author of the American Vanguard Exhibitions 1961 and in 2006 wrote the foreword to Jansen’s book, Modern Urban Expressionism, The Art of Marcus Antonius Jansen, which was Donson’s last written publication.

Opening Reception

 Friday, May 6, 2011 6pm-10pm.

A very special exhibition opens at daas Gallery in the month of May. This time, daas hosts a collaborative event between two of their own resident artists. Danielle Thomas, a glass and mixed media artist and her husband Troy Thomas, visual artist and assistant gallery director, will join forces to present a series of new works created just for this show. The exhibition is cleverly entitled Marriage. The title not only signifies the unification of Troy and Danielle in the month of May, but also the marrying together of the multiple mediums on display.

“To us, marriage is a piece of Art—an ever-changing canvas of bright spots, dark blobs, crazy lines, hard patches, and happy places. It is within that piece of art, that fabric of being, which we drew our inspiration for this show. It is not only about our marriage to each other, but the marriage of differing mediums to create our art. We wanted to stretch our comfort zone in our favored mediums and explore what it means to “marry” them together in a contemporary manner. The result is a vibrant display of colors, shapes, and ideas.” – says the artful couple.

Danielle Thomas is a fourth-generation artisan, with her father introducing to her favorite medium—glass fusion. Danielle draws from historical references, such as her great-grandmother’s quilts, to create her pieces. “I see scraps of glass as scraps of fabric and feel the heat sews them together, ” – says Danielle. After successful showings throughout the Florida art fair circuit, Danielle took time off to pursue other interests. She is now back to fusing.

Troy, on the other hand, did not get much exposure to art while growing up in a small town in Ohio. After a few attempts at an early age of production, he did not get serious about fine art until his return from serving in Iraq in 2005. Troy tends to prefer to paint geometrical abstractions, which stems from his keen love of Math.

As for the love story for these two, theirs is a modern version. Girl sees picture of boy on the Internet in fatigues holding an art piece he created. Girl emails boy. Boy replies. A long-distance courtship of emails, phone calls, and instant messaging ensued until the physical meeting occurred. Fireworks. They lived happily ever after.

Marriage will be on display through Friday, May 27. The daas Gallery promises another phenomenal night of great art, great friends and good wine. For more information about the event, please visit www.daasgallery.com. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00am to 3:00pm.

The Alliance with a joint event with Gulf Coast Symphony to bring chamber music to the Foulds Theatre. Saturday, May 21st at 8PM Gulf Coast Symphony’s chamber music ensemble will perform a concert featuring breathtaking pieces by Brahms, Handel, Gould and Danzi. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased by calling 239-277-1700 and online at www.gulfcoastsymphony.org. Seating is limited.