15 Years and Still Vertical proclaims the title of painter Ray Paul's latest exhibit. The milestone is no small feat for Paul — or the studio space that has nurtured him through the years. In 1989, Artists Unlimited, Inc. began renting studios and hosting gallery shows for Tampa artists. Two years later, Paul joined and eventually became one of the few long-time members.
Nestled in the concrete jungle of Channelside's rising condos, the three-story former warehouse holds 32 studios. Common areas are furnished with comfy second-hand couches, and gallery spaces show off the work of current resident artists: many painters, some photographers, sculptors and potters. Through June and July, Paul's bright abstractions take over the main gallery.
If AUI seems slightly out of place amid the burgeoning swank and bustle of nouveau riche Channelside, so does Paul. Looking preternaturally young for a mid-career artist, his sandy blonde hair and broken-in T-shirt evoke central casting's idea of a surfer dude. Paul, a native Ohioan, says his fascination with Florida and all things tropical began as a young boy; one childhood visit hooked him for life. He came down for college at FSU and pretty much stayed after that.
A love of warmer climes and an interest in science combined to inform Paul's color palette and painting process. The palette screams with supersaturated hues that, when juxtaposed or highlighted with white, can seem downright electric (think Amazonian tree frogs). His method of drip-and-splatter painting owes an obvious debt to Pollock and abstract expressionism, with a twist.
Paul begins with loose, thwacking gestures of paint across wood or canvas, creating a foundation of broad strokes on a color field. Then he meticulously adds layers of contrasting color within the semi-accidental shapes, creating a series of striking outlines around some lines and splotches. A splatter of yellow paint grows inner layers of orange, red, deep burgundy, spurring a sense of dimensionality and movement. Suddenly a fiery comet passes across the picture space. Other rimmed islands of color resemble mountains on a topographic map or cellular life.
Each painting is an experiment, says Paul — an effort to let paints of different viscosity or composition mix and mingle, bleed and swirl. The product can resemble a scene at macro- or micro-scale: primordial soup or a far-off galaxy. After 15 years of trial and error, Paul has learned how to make the most of his materials — and he's still standing.
Over in Ybor City, clients of RedLetter1 are definitely not standing — they're sitting, eyes clouded with the glazed nonchalance of hardcore tattoo fans under the incessantly buzzing needle. Tattoo is elevated to fine art here, where resident artists, led by San Francisco area veteran Phil Holt, design and … install … custom art directly onto your epidermis. Drunken sorority girls looking to get "Om" tattooed on their ankle need not apply.
The year-old studio's dramatic second floor loft space doubles as a gallery for representational and graffiti-inspired contemporary art. Most tattoo studios combine with some other form of business, Holt notes, but "we have no interest in piercing … or selling bongs."
Instead, between gallery shows and posting images of artwork on his website, Holt manages to do a fair clip of business in the art world. A wealth of connections from time spent in San Francisco and Chicago doesn't hurt; he estimates that in the current show of 30 artists from throughout the country, half are friends and half are friends of friends. California collectors watching the website are helping him supplement the Tampa market for the time being.
Typewriters, the current show, gives artists free rein to do what they will with text and type. Tampa's Tes One submerges a woman's face in a tangle of letters; the delicate curls of "S" and "g" playfully threaten to overwhelm her. Another local artist, Anthony Zollo, creates a stream-of-consciousness flow of words cut out from magazines. The flood of thoughts gushes from between a woman's legs onto the second panel of the diptych, where a minotaur embraces a half-human, half-fawn child.
Hybridity is a common thread (that begins with the gallery's dual identity). Holt's own painting, "False Advertising," recasts the female figure from a clothing ad as a cyborg femme fatale. An acrylic-on-linen portrait of St. Louis of Toulouse by Retna, aka Marquis Lewis, updates a "really old" French painting from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said the artist. The bishop has grown a transparent, synthetic skin and droopy eyes that suggest a being not quite human. Text becomes a background for the figure, and a reference to the subject's intimacy with holy writ.
Though Retna, an L.A. graffiti artist, is known for his paintings on blown-up advertisements, it's Norm of AWR who weighs in with an altered Victoria's Secret "angel." The purple, lingerie-clad model gets a set of pink wings and becomes a play on the acronym AWR, which Holt says stands for Art Work Rebels and Angels Will Rise, among other things — it's the name of a prolific crew of graffiti writers based in the S.F. Bay area.
RedLetter1 is presumably the only tattoo studio in the area that offers a nude life drawing session on Saturday mornings. Bring your own supplies and $15 to the 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. marathons. Holt says that artists of all levels of experience (including none) are welcome, but please be 18 or older.
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2006.
