An annual ritual at Clayton Galleries in South Tampa, Hot Summer Show I (followed by Hot Summer Shows II and III in July and August) showcases works by the gallery's stable of artists, who also happen to be some of the Bay area's finest talents.
While much of the works are paintings, a few folk art pieces defy definition. David Adix's charming figure — which the artist describes as a native or a spirit figure — is composed of found objects: old nails, screws, paper clips, puzzle pieces, thumbtacks, costume jewelry. Colorful junk stuffed into a wire body. Carl Knickerbocker, based in Oviedo (northeast of Orlando), paints his iconic man-headed lizards on pieces of found metal, like a rusted panel from the side of an old heater.
Visitors may be surprised by Roberta Schofield's latest work. The Tampa-based painter is well-known for her paintings of metaphysical interiors reminiscent of Giorgio de Chirico. The Hot Summer Show finds her working in a new medium: large-scale digital photography. In her picture of a classical statue at the State Hermitage Museum in Russia, the marble figure is enlarged until it seems to disintegrate into a matrix of cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots that invoke pop art and atomic physics.
Other delights include Dolores Coe's carnival-inspired landscapes; Bruce Marsh's descriptive paintings of Florida's landscape and Kathy Wright's laconic, vaguely ominous versions of the same; Benjamin Dimmitt's black-and-white photographs of wooded Florida terrain at Caladesi Island and other natural hideaways; and Claudia Ryan's tangled acrylic dreamscape, with its row of tiny buildings aligned under a sky of vibrating lines.
Hot Summer Show I runs through July 17 at Clayton Galleries, 4105 S Macdill Ave, Tampa, claytongalleries.net.
