Ann-Marie Manker, Hummingbirds. myspace.com/cheddarbunny
On Friday, [5]art presents the first in a series of exhibitions from contemporary art galleries around the country where the Tampa collective’s work will be shown later this year. Fever Fakers, featuring five artists from Young Blood Gallery in Atlanta, is particularly notable for its fine examples of figurative drawing and painting: from Steven Alexander Dixey’s chilling acrylic interpretations of classical and biblical imagery (e.g., Cain at the moment of his sentencing, guiltily clutching a handgun), rendered in a style that’s half graphic novel and half medieval altarpiece, to Ann-Marie Manker’s delicate drawings that follow a female figure through a fantasyland populated by curiously affectionate animals. If this show doesn’t raise the temperature of Tampa’s visual art scene by a few degrees, what will?
Friday
6 p.m. – Opening reception for Verso: The Other Side of the Urban Vista, photographs by Thomas U. Gessler, at the Studio@620.
7-10 p.m. – Opening reception for Fever Fakers, featuring art by Steven Dixey, Ann-Marie Manker, Samuel Parker, Joe Tsambiras and Cristina Vidal of Young Blood Gallery (Atlanta) at [5]art.
7-10 p.m. – Opening reception for Roger Chamieh, featuring work by the Tampa-based sculptor, at three04 (adjacent to [5]art).
Saturday
10 a.m.-5 p.m. – ECO.lution, Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park in downtown Tampa. (Though not a visual art event, let’s support the Urban Charrette’s efforts to promote sustainable living in Tampa Bay.)
10 a.m.-5 p.m. – 10th Annual Wildlife & Western Visions Art Show at Raymond James Financial, St. Petersburg. For more information contact The Plainsmen Gallery 1-888-779-2240 or go to wildlifeartshow.com.
This article appears in Apr 22-28, 2009.