Art Center Sarasota exhibition focuses on smaller, intimate pieces

Art Center Sarasota gears up for 100th birthday

Art Center Sarasota is nearing its milestone 100th birthday, so they are of course celebrating by focusing on art that is small, with the exhibition "Small Works." Photojournalist Barry Wong reports.

SARASOTA, Fla. - Art Center Sarasota is nearing its milestone 100th birthday, so they are of course celebrating by focusing on art that is small, with the exhibition "Small Works."

"By having art at this size, it allows you to have a lot of different types of mediums because we're not working on a 200-foot sculpture," guest curator Samo Davis said. "We're working on something that can be displayed on a shelf. You're really seeing everything within kind of this intimate size."

Dig deeper:

The only rule with the exhibition was that submitted work must be smaller than 15x15x15 inches. Of course, small pieces mean more pieces on display. Davis says the scale also creates an approachable atmosphere. 

"Sometimes when it's huge, they feel intimated by the massive scale of a piece," Davis said. "When you have something small, people feel like they can look at it."

What they're saying:

Photographer Janet Combs captured an everyday scene on a trip to Philadelphia while looking out of the window of her hotel. A man is crossing the street after going to a grocery store. 

"I think it has the people come in deeper. The viewer will come in deeper to look at it, to see what is going on," Combs said. 

Combs said her favorite part of this experience is watching people closely examine and comment on her work. 

"I'm a people connector, so I love people," Combs said. "I love being intimate with faces and portraits and that's what keeps me going. There are new faces to look at every day and new stories to tell."

Artist Drew Haynes collaged some of his graphite pieces of faces into a new singular face called, "Talk To Me Nice". 

"The idea comes from, so I think people speak a lot into our lives, and it shapes who we are as people," Haynes said. "The whole sentiment is talk to me nice because you might shape how I exist in space."

Haynes loves the challenge of working in a small scale. 

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"When you're working on very small details, you kind of got to get them right. I like the intimacy of it," Haynes said. 

It's that type of intimacy that both artists and staff hope will appeal to visitors. 

"It's the intimacy of being able to actually be a little bit closer to the artwork, look into it, and feel like it's something that's more approachable," Davis said. "I really hope that that inspires people who maybe don't do art or people who came to the show to feel like they can handle something that's a little on a smaller scale."