The more art you see, the better your eye gets and the surer you become about what you like and why. There are lots of excellent opportunities in galleries throughout the west-central Florida region for looking and learning. Here are a few, each with a different point of view from traditional to contemporary. All are free.
Lennie Bennett, Times art critic
Re:Visit
Studio@620
620 First Ave. S, St. Petersburg
Friday through Oct. 6
Hours: noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday
Elizabeth Herrmann and Ryan Shelley like to stir up both mediums and messages in their collaborative art, which is created under the title ras+e. They range far and wide in their subject matter and materials but much of it has a raw street sensibility tied to a strong and restrained graphic composition. As you see in the photographic print shown. They're printmakers who use just about any process in service to their vision. In their loyalty to the older, more challenging ones, silver gelatin or intaglio, for example, which many younger artists don't use, they seem positively revolutionary. But they like to use new, self-developed, nondigital methods, too, especially, as Herrmann says, using "common and found materials in a post-print design world ... physicality is important in a landscape of assumed pixel noise."
A free opening reception is Friday from 6 to 9 p.m.
Learn some of their alternative printmaking methods at Re:Print, a one-day workshop at Studio@620 from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. $40.
Nature Life Images
Pasco-Hernando Community College Gallery
10230 Ridge Road, New Port Richey
Today through Nov. 1
Hours: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday
Photographer Cheryl Molennor creates macro images — extreme closeups — of natural Florida such as this cross-section of a chambered nautilus. An opening reception is from 4 to 6 p.m. today.
The Art of Fashion
Syd Entel Galleries and Susan Benjamin Glass
247 Main St., Safety Harbor
Through Oct. 6
Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday
This group show of five artists has paintings and sculptures inspired by fashion including this "dress" by Katarzyna Karbownik etched and painted glass.
Kerry Vosler at TECO Public Art Gallery
702 N Franklin St., Tampa
Through Oct. 4
Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday
Vosler is a traditionalist, using realism and conventional mediums such as oil on canvas for her portraits. Flamenco dancers are one of her subjects, as seen here, and she exhibits a group of them.