UNRAVELED

On Thursday April 5, 2018, Ringling Underground and Artist Liaison Ender Wilde present:

Unraveled, a Ringling Museum Courtyard exhibition of three local artists who examine the physical representation of emotions. Including poetics of space, hyper-realized imagery, and confrontational design. Filtering through intimacies, the psychological form and the taboo, these three emerging artist offer subtle conversations in contrast to the exterior persona. Contemporary representations of self are often allusions to a single aspect of an individual, instead these artists dismantle the body to identify intrapersonal dilemmas while maintaining a clean and concise aesthetic. 

Ava Zelkowitz is an artist and writer who mergers the poetics of text with installation. Her work evokes latent emotional states and reactions as signs to be confronted as disruptions of environment. Ava’s work is commanding and soft. As the individual fabrics or letters flow in the breeze or fall on the landscape the audience is immediately elsewhere. Each word, letter, or image evokes the personal intimacies from a dreamscape, leaving the audience lost in thought. 

Sarah Grace Bradicich is a print-maker, painter, and textiles artist exploring ideas and issues of femininity through a historical and anthropological perspective. Her work is clean, crisp and hyper feminine. Her explorations of the female body through sugar-coated contraceptives demonstrates a keen eye for both design and play. Sarah’s work is meant to be alluring and unsettling, focusing on high energy colors and tactile objects, she sugar coats the immediacy of self-harm associated with birth control and contraceptives. 

Briana Nieves is a religious studies major who utilizes photography and film-making to identify the significance of both the mother and the eroticism in contemporary catholicism. Working with women of color, Bree stretches the rules of traditional iconography and familial relationships. Incorporating images of both family members and fellow bodies of color, Briana opens a conversation about the mother figure and the divine body. 

EXPERIMENTAL AND IMMERSIVE

On Thursday November 7, 2019, Ringling Underground and Artist Liaison Ender Wilde presents: 

Experimental and Immersive, a Ringling Museum Courtyard exhibition of local artists Nick Dahill, Jared Lloyd, Jack Micoli and Alisa Hozdic. Experimental and Immersive exhibits new works by emerging artists in Sarasota.

Jared Lloyd a graphic designer and painter, focuses on high contrast and flow. His work relates the 1920’s Bauhaus posters, the op art of the 1970's and contemporary digital vector files. Beyond the initial hard-edge black and white acrylic, viewers are taught to see reactionary linework, finding connectivity and narrative through composition. 

A recent graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design. 

www.jaredmlloyd.com   Follow @FlowofJayrad

Nick Dahill's paintings begin a discussion between illustration and virtual reality. Using digital illustrations, painting and installation he bridges the gap of interface and immersion. With this new installation, Nick brings the type of scale experienced in old 3D platformer games to the realm world.  He often works with layered graffiti, characters and linework encouraging viewers to question the set-like backdrops compared to his bold multi-object installation. 

A recent graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design. Follow @nickdahill

Jack Micoli creates nostalogic fantasies as facets connected to their wooden vessels. Jack creates a symbiosis of form/function and remembrance/memory. “While these pictures are nonsensical and surreal, to chase factual image of the past would only twist what is already a delusional dream: memory,” states Jack. This depiction of fantastic remembrance is both personal and global, as the symbolism -such as toys- are shared throughout several generations. Familial illustrations of a homeplace, an eden, the land of milk and honey, the toy aisle of Target all wrap together in these large and miniature scale objects. Jack builds the wooden vessels with hand tools and homemade steam tunnels. 

A recent graduate of New College of Florida. 

Alisa Hodzic deconstructs the barrier between what is human and what is nature. She creates “work with organic materials such as produce, plants and bugs… (she) creates paper from sliced produce then establishes new compositional structures.” These compositions inhabit light-filled spaces, and are often a stark visual contrast from the pristine gallery interior in their raw form. These site-specific works offer a new component, an interaction and occupation of spaces to create a maze-like experience of immersion.   With a focus on the responsibility of providing a visual guide to the hostile relationship humans have with the earth and its elements. Alisa states, “Through processes guided by natures’ algorithms, I present an array of pieces that capture the beauty of raw biological data and heighten these unadulterated elements”. 

A recent graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design.  

www.alisahodzic.com    Follow @redmystery_ 

CULTURED

Ringling Underground and Artist Liaison, Ender Wilde, present a group pop-up exhibition held in the John and Mable Ringling Museum Historic Courtyard on February 7, 2019

CULTURED

ANDREA ODED AND ALFREDO GARCIA

CULTURED, a Ringling Museum Courtyard exhibition of Andrea Oded and Alfredo Garcia. Cultured exhibits new works by artists who engage heritage, history and the migrant experience. Oded and Garcia explore notions of culture through pattern and symbolism. Oded constructs large-scale lanterns with cut patterns alluding to his diverse heritage. Garcia illustrates personal relationships and biblical stories in symbolic paintings from from intimate to immediate in scale.           

Andrea Oded creates work inspired by an anthropological fascination of today’s society and the history leading up to it. Having grown up between Italy, Guatemala, Israel, and Florida, four vastly different cultures, he creates intricate metal sculptures that explore history, religion, family, cultural identity, psychology, and politics. Each work is inspired by the art, iconography and mythology from these different cultures and their history; Greco Roman, Mesoamerican, Middle Eastern, and modern day western influences. 

Oded, a recent graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design, focuses on pattern and form to illustrate his personal response to these histories. Each cut shape in the large sphere is organically developed as the artist recollects on the identifiable symbolism, iconography and architecture of his own sacred spaces. The internal light casts vibrant shadows, playing on the environment and architecture which  makes each work site specific and reactionary. Overwhelmed by the scale and the finality of the cut metal, Oded hopes to inspire interest in understanding humanity’s vast culture and history.    www.andreadoded.com

Alfredo Garcia grew up in Guerrero, Mexico, as one of eight children. His parents worked the fields in Mexico and had no formal education. Garcia enjoyed his public education and even spent time working as a teacher in the hills outside of Mexico City, often walking seven hours to reach his students. Garcia first studied philosophy at the University of Mexico City before beginning 10 months of art studies at the International Institute of Art. Combining philosophy and art Garcia found himself wanting “to find answers for things [...] I was curious. I realized it is very difficult to know things.” At the time he found his favorite philosophers were Schopenhauer and Plato. Then, Garcia began studying the pre-Raphaelite artists and “the 19th century artists opened a new door to beauty”. 

Currently, Garcia creates sculptures, totems and oil paintings on wood by combining biblical, familial and Mexican mythologies. His work overlaps craft and fine art, it focuses on the story - in whichever media that is told. Large-scale family portraits open up a conversation of identity and acceptance. 

As owner of Arte Coyoacono gallery in the Bradenton Village of the Arts, Garcia regularly opens his studio doors to the public for art walks. www.facebook.com/alfredogarcia

Best of Underground

On Thursday April 4, 2019, Ringling Underground event and artist liaison Ender Wilde presents:

Best of Underground, a Ringling Museum Courtyard exhibition of local artists Ender Wilde, Zach Gilliland, Javo, Tom Winchester and Rachael Zucker. Best of Underground exhibits new works by emerging and mid-career artists who actively participate in our local arts community.

Ender Wilde's paintings begin a discussion between mythology and portraiture as a means to challenge identity and persona construction. Ender discusses reality versus persona, and the dissemination of self-identity in our post-internet culture. Within this current series, color is synonymous with emotion, and the extremely intimate work is full of both. Using digital reference, and photos she takes herself, Ender captures a moment, rather than a full depiction of self. She often works with color and saturation as an element that separates the images from reality, creating her own visual language rooted in the point and post culture of contemporary social media.

Ender received her B.A. from New College of Florida focused on Painting and Classics. Currently she works as the Ringling Underground Artist Liaison, as Exhibitions and Marketing Coordinator at Art Center Sarasota, and as a free-lance mural artist. www.enderwilde.com   Instagram @enderwilde

Zach Gilliand is constantly tinkering in the studio, trying new things, making new forms, honing his skills and dreaming up the impossible.  “When I have an idea, I try it. Not all approaches work, but I attempt everything and eventually the dots begin to connect. The key, for me, is to simply be working.  As Picasso said, “inspiration exists but it has to find you working”. I search for the simple and the organic as a jumping off point. Then I find the subtle complexities that give the piece depth.  Once a project begins to take shape I send it to the moon and back, building it up and ripping it back apart. This process is extremely important for me to filter out unnecessary information. My ultimate goal is to pull the viewer in from a distance, keep them looking up close and then leave them wondering when they turn away.”  www.zachgilliland.net Instagram @ZachGilli

Javo is always in the search for new challenges and new ways to work. “This new work gave me an excuse, an opportunity to expose myself one more time and travel out of my comfort zone to where every inch mattered. These paintings are small glimpses, tiny windows of those specific moments in time where everything seems less complex and more intimate.” Using strong line work, simple and sometimes provocative concepts, and an unstoppable urge for creating, Javo's work has evolved towards a style that is both bold and unmistakable.

Originally from Puerto Rico, Javo graduated from Ringling College of Art & Design and began his career as an illustrator for local as well as international clients. At present Javo exhibits his work through the Museum of the Americas in Miami and he is also an active member of the local group of artists S/aRt/Q where he exhibits and promotes his work. www.iamjavo.com    Instagram @iamjavo

Tom Winchester attempts to deconstruct the genre of portraiture through his Daylight series. As a genre ostensibly meant to convey not only the identity of the depicted individual, but also something genuine about his or her personality, this series taps into how daylight serves as a basis upon which we interpret the world around us. In this series, each individual appears in front of a white background in natural light. The depicted individuals are artists, musicians, and yogis from Saint Petersburg and Sarasota, Florida. By utilizing lighting that doesn’t signal a sense of artificiality, and by eliminating any outside context, Daylight focuses on how these individuals’ true personalities can be conveyed. www.twinchester.com    Instagram @m7q80

Rachael Zucker composes lowbrow, surreal portraits that focus on the complexities of the femme fatale, arranged within a counterworld in which one experiences the seduction of MOTEK (her pseudonym). Dark ethereal themes occupy most of her work, setting seductive feminine figures into ambiguous, otherwordly environments. Viewers are heavily entranced by the mysterious and vibrant quality of her paintings. Inspired by the mysterious women of contemporary club culture, MOTEK entices the gaze while also making the viewer feel unsettled or impotent. Her work establishes the female figure’s escape from the male gaze and emergence as a warden of her own being. Instagram @iamotek

ODDITIES, Ringling Underground

ODDITIES, a Ringling Museum Courtyard Exhibition of five local artists who compose uncanny surrealisms presented by Artist Liaison, Ender Wilde. The works contain traces of sarcasm, wit, gore, and psychological discoveries within outlandish compositions.Through their narratives these artists bypass reason and rationality by accessing their unconscious mind to expose the complex and repressed inner worlds of desire and violence. A series of illustrations, composed of idyllic colors and familiar landscapes meant to entice the viewer, ODDITIES’ artists use monsters and creatures to represent the culture and customs they navigate on a daily basis.
Pop surreal influences, the macarabe, and eroticism layer to engage and encourage the gaze. 

DESIRE

Scott Olive was born in a land far, far away. A little known place called Tampa, Florida. Scott grew up influenced by Salvador Dali, Dr. Seuss, and DMX. His favorite food is pizza and his favorite ninja turtle is Michelangelo. He is married and has two young kids, and tattoos full time at Oddity Tattoo on Main Street in downtown Sarasota. www.scottolive.com

Pleasantly obsessed with owls, Alex Lugo, originally from Brooklyn NY, has been tattooing since 1997. Alex’s childlike fascination with the natural world inspires his work. He hopes one day his talents in art and tattooing will be mirrored in regard to mustache grooming. www.alexlugotattoos.com

 UNCANNY ROMANTICISM

 Self-taught, Travis Franklin holds many titles including co-owner of Oddity Tattoo and Arts (with his wife Melanie), painter, sculptor, tattoo artist and inventor. Travis’s work creates a feeling of other-worldliness by featuring familiar elements with extreme perspectives and dynamic details. Travis draws inspiration from emotions, feelings and thoughts rather than anything tangible. He explores the beauty and profoundness in subjects that others might find disturbing or morbid. www.travisfranklin.com

 A native of Germany, Will Ralston, began making art at an early age, forever burning through sketchbooks and leaking pencils from every pocket. Will develops large scale intense expressions to produce an unbalanced state or an emotional contradiction. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Illustration from Ringling College of Art & Design in 2008. He continues to illustrate in the skin, as a part of the incredible family of artists at Oddity Tattoo Studio & Arts. www.willralston.com

Horror artist, Matt Helmer, unconsciously adds elements of fear and revulsion even in the most mundane subject matter. Matt’s erie palette, unsettling gestures and deceitful compositions reflect his attraction to the macabre. Reconstructing certain parts of the psychic structure to be singled out, explored and brought to their maximum development, often in monsters. Instagram: @matthelmer

Each of the artists presented in ODDITIES utilize different subject matter to illustrate the uncanny; their commonality is found in the relationship between their artwork and the viewer’s experience of narrative. Highly saturated colors to engage the viewer in an ideal counter world allows the them to engage in the underlying perplexities. The Surrealist impulse to tap the unconscious mind, and these artists’ interests in myth and primitivism, remains influential in their work at Oddity Tattoo Studio & Art Gallery in Sarasota, building their brand as new age, pop surreal, and uncanny tattoo specialists.

All inquiries should be sent directly to Oddity Tattoo & Art 941.955.6246 or to Ringling Underground Artist Liaison, Ender at enderwildeart@gmail.com.

Ethereal Cosmos, a Ringling Museum Courtyard Exhibition

On Thursday October 5, 2017, Ringling Underground and Artist Liaison Ender Wilde presents: 

A Ringling Museum Courtyard Exhibition of local artists Joe Loccisano, Rachel Zucker, and Kierra Boyd.

Ethereal Cosmos engages place, purpose, and the human experience. Joe Loccisano, Rachel Zucker and Kierra Boyd explore notions of self through expressive lines, vibrant colors, and counter-worlds. Surreal yet familiar images invite viewers into personal phantasmagorias which act as platforms to challenge intrapersonal and social relationships.

Finding inspiration in the human experience, archetypal images, and emotions, Joe Loccisano collages found images, gesture drawing and decorative collections to create miniature homes wrapped in dramatic compositions of natural and manmade elements. Joe contrasts the artistic tradition and his openness to experimental techniques through juxtaposing pensive figures and ethereal landscapes within his “Antiquities Cosmologia”.  A recent shift to installation creates a new purpose for his intricate drawings, to transform exhibition spaces into places of meditation both personal and collective. 

Rachel Zucker composes lowbrow, surreal portraits that focus on the complexities of the femme fatale, arranged within a counterworld in which one experiences the seduction of MOTEK (her pseudonym). Dark ethereal themes occupy most of her work, setting seductive feminine figures into ambiguous, otherwordly environments. Viewers are heavily entranced by the mysterious and vibrant quality of her paintings. Inspired by the mysterious women of contemporary club culture, MOTEK entices the gaze while also making the viewer feel unsettled or impotent. Her work establishes the female figure’s escape from the male gaze and emergence as a warden of her own being. 

Kierra Boyd offers monsters as a means to communicate the difficulty of transitioning into adulthood. Kierra considers monsters to be both ethnographic and apotropaic, meaning she uses monsters to represent the culture and customs in which she navigates on a daily basis, as well as repel evil or unsettling emotions. Through a series of myths, composed of unnatural colors and impossible landscapes, monsters become manifestations of Kierra’s emotional exploration focusing on the anxiety she faces in interpersonal relationships and her in own art-making process, providing an understanding of the contemporary coming of age story.  

FRACTURED REALITIES - RUG 02|2019

Ringling Underground and Artist Liaison, Ender Wilde, present a group pop-up exhibition held in the John and Mable Ringling Museum Historic Courtyard on February 7, 2019

Fractured Realities

SAVANNAH MAGNOLIA, ANDREA MORGANSTERN, ALEISHA PRATHER

Using landscape as a platform and pulling from the need for collective escapism, artists Aleisha Prather, Savannah Magnolia and Andrea Morganstern create works that challenge environmental and social normaties. Aleisha Prather and Andrea Morganstern fragment the visual experience through their works producing confronting elements of the physical experience on both a macro and micro scale. While artist, Savannah Magnolia entices and distracts the viewer inevitably introducing a deep undertone of social discomfort. Each artist brings a particular perspective to the notion of reality, offering elemental conversations highlighting production and disruption.

Aleisha Prather fractures perception to connect to and disassociate with the surrounding landscape. This tense balance through portals offers enough information to interpret a familiar foreground while simultaneously breaking what is known, causing the unexplained which becomes magical. This magic is enhanced with the transitory opacity of the melted plastic bottles which are the lenses of the kaleidoscopes. Soft curves, specks of light and interlacing colors bounce between hollows of raw-edged branches and logs, enticing the viewer to lean in and nearly touch the surface of a new dimension.

www.aleishaprather.com @aleishapratherart

Savannah Magnolia welcomes a conversation of taboo issues of pharmaceuticals and public surveillance in a playful and approachable way. Enticing the audience with vibrant colors and exaggerated cartoons, Magnolia seamlessly melds the use of undertone and harsh realities. Magnolia's pre-med experience fostered her interest in human anatomy and manipulation of familiar anatomical elements to relate and enlighten her audience- using eyeball plants to cast light across her large-scale landscape she fills her work with an unforgiving notion of surveillance, while flying pills and teeth spiders swarm the landscape as pharmaceuticals have invaded healthcare. Understanding of the need to escape the overseeing eyes of big brother and the prescription first mentality, Magnolia has created her own language of fractured reality.

www.meltingmagnolia.com @meltingmagnolia

Andrea Morganstern presents intimate pointillist works on paper as studies representing celestial bodies, at the microscopic and cosmic levels. Through minimal compositions focusing on patterns found in nature, Morganstern depicts the ephemeral characteristics of elements found in our physical world. Creation and dissolution impact her work as she develops forms using small dots, these dots act as building blocks for solid yet fleeting forms. The overwhelming circles and crescents offer an ethereal aspect to her work, opening up discussions of the birth, ascension, and fragmentation of the physical world. Morganstern produces an impression of this continuous energy transfer, similar to the way tea grounds are left at the bottom of an empty cup.

www.andreadmorganstern.com @andreamorganstern