For the past few years I have been fortunate to provide gallery documentation through a partnership with Tracy Midulla, the Founder and Creative Director of TEMPUS PROJECTS - a nonprofit gallery space located in Tampa's South Seminole Heights District.
“TEMPUS PROJECTS is dedicated to nurturing established and emerging local, national and international artists through exhibitions and events. The non-profit organization promotes artists working in all media and originates, organizes, and hosts exhibitions that engage the Tampa Bay community through the visual arts. Established in 2009, TEMPUS PROJECTS has presented numerous exhibitions and art-related programs featuring the work of dynamic and engaging artists and collaborators. ”
Once a month, I stop by TEMPUS PROJECTS and document the exhibits in the Main Gallery Space, Project Space and neighboring CUNSTHAUS gallery. These galleries showcase some of the most contemporary and innovative shows in the Tampa Bay Area. I love being able to immortalize these exhibits for both the gallery and artists that show there. Here are a few images from each of the shows I documented for December 2017.
Neil Bender: Head Cream
TEMPUS PROJECTS Main Gallery, November 18th - January 6th 2018.
“Neil Bender’s work is the epitome of Boucher’s quote: “I detest the natural world because it is too green and poorly lit”. The aim of the work is to seduce and give pleasure through imagery that is social and accessible, that loves the idea of surface as a way of picturing honest yet mischievous belief systems. The work is a communicative device that takes imagery that is exploited by our popular culture and forms a new interface for open dialogue, with an interest in pleasure, sensuality, and black humor as the starting points. Through a restructuring of provocative images, he hopes to open up new contents that are potentially morally questionable.”
Desiree Moore :Bare Your Teeth
CUNSTHAUS - November 18th - January 5th, 2017.
“Bare Your Teeth is a time-based installation that builds on content as the viewer moves through the space encountering new perspectives with each step.
Bare Your Teeth explores the social complexities of gender, and specifically the cultural norms assigned to women and girls. Bare Your Teeth isolates moments of gesture to consider the feminine experience within culturally accepted sexism and harassment. In some ways, these tactics have been perpetuated into normalcy, a convenient disguise protected by civility. Benevolence is not a shield, and ignorance is not acceptable. These issues are timely, as women continue to step forward publicly with stories of sexual abuse and harassment in Hollywood and the art world. The harassment is not new, but the widespread public acknowledgment of it is.
Renowned author Margaret Atwood has stated, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Through video and sculpture, Bare Your Teeth examines the power dynamics at work in women’s laughter and smiles, and the ways that the smallest gestures by a woman become sexualized.”
Thank you to Tracy and the entirety of the TEMPUS PROJECTS and CUNSTHAUS Board Organizations! I look forward to next month's exhibits!