THE ART

Our current showcase:

For No Particular Reason, A Danger Tape Fling

TONY RODRIGUES

Tony Rodrigues is a knock-around artist and educator, exhibiting regularly over three decades. Mr. Rodrigues’ work is included in private, corporate, and institutional collections nationally and abroad.

JENNIFER LAIL

Jennifer Lail is an artist based in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. She received her BFA from the University of North Florida, with a focus on abstract painting. She was an artist in residence at Wolfson Children’s Hospital from 2009-2012, and currently maintains a studio practice informed by meditation. Working in an environment dedicated to healing had a profound effect on her work. Her paintings since 2012 have been an ongoing exploration of the way color-centric abstract art impacts environments and emotions. She has exhibited in Delaware, Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra, and Atlanta. Her work is in the collections of the McKessen, MD Anderson Cancer Treatment Center, CSX, Akerman LLP, University of North Florida, and Target Corporate in Orlando.

DUSTIN HAREWOOD

Dustin Harewood was born and grew up in New York City and became a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum at 7 years old. His family later moved back to Barbados where he attended high school. He later moved back to the U.S where he attended North Carolina Central University (BA) and then the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (MFA). He teaches Painting, Drawing, and Design at Florida State College at Jacksonville.

While beautifully fascinating and simultaneously destructive, our contemporary culture is one that is wasteful yet transformative. A throw away culture which takes garbage and up-cycles it into valuable objects which transcend time, religion, fine art, and commerce. Harewood’s art practice over the last decade has explored themes of multiculturalism, the consequences of colonialism and the environmental impact of industrialization.

CRYSTAL FLOYD

As a visual artist born and raised in Northeast Florida, my work explores themes of nature, storytelling, and adaptive reuse, transforming collected ephemera and manipulated materials into naturalistic and nostalgic vignettes. Drawing inspiration from the environment and science, I employ preserved insects, taxonomic items, natural artifacts, miniatures, and artificial objects to activate magical narratives. I work from my art studio and also serve as Studio Director at CoRK Arts District, an 80,000 sq. ft. facility that houses a gallery & workspace for over 60 artists.

MARK CREEGAN

Mark Creegan alternates between various media such as painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, installation, and performance. Underlying Creegan’s incredibly diverse practice is a thoughtful exploration of abstract form, repetitive mark-making, color, humor, and use of found and discarded materials. Hairnets, shark’s teeth, used watercolor sets and combs are just some of the diverse array of objects Creegan employs into minimalist arrangements or large-scale installations which are often used as spaces for performative actions. His paintings are grouped into two categories: multi-layered abstraction on various textured fabrics, or hard-edged abstract paintings on wood panels (the “dopey-formalism” series). He currently lives in Jacksonville, Florida, and received a MFA from Florida State University.

MICO A FUENTES

Mico A Fuentes is a visual artist living and working in Jacksonville, FL, and holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Jacksonville University. Mico has a background in printmaking and utilizes the principles of printmaking towards the creation of an object. His work employs semiotics and defeated materials to communicate the concepts of value, consumerism, and the witness of the natural world. Mico has produced many works for public consumption including commissions, collaborations, and as artist in residences. His 2D and 3D work predominantly exist in the Southeastern United States but have also been featured in exhibitions throughout the country including New York and California, and internationally, in Mexico. Mico’s work is featured in the permanent collection of the Museum of Science and History Jacksonville, in this work titled “Variable Vantage” Mico uses the perspective of the micro and macro while considering the vitality of the future. His work uses place and time to reflect on the fallible nature of humanity and its tenacity to evolve.

PRINCESS SIMPSON RASHID

Princess Simpson Rashid (b. 1972) is an American visual artist, writer, inventor, activist, and competitive fencer. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Georgia State University and worked as a nano-science researcher at Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). She studied painting and printmaking at the Escuela de Artes Plastica (EAP) in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her current body of work explores the relationship between color, perception, and symbolism. She investigates the role the brain plays in how we experience our environment and create our reality. Her focus is on the magic behind human creativity. Her paintings and original prints have been exhibited in museums, art centers, galleries, and alternative art spaces across the United States. Public collections of note include Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center, Lake Eustis Art Museum, and the Jacksonville Museum of Science & History (MOSH). Rashid is a consistent, active participant in her local arts and cultural community. Rashid operates her studio practice within the CoRK Arts District of Jacksonville, FL.

ROY ALBERT BERRY

My goal is to make pictures that buddy up to myth, memory, exclusion, and loneliness by way of shared nervous laughter. While moving across the country during the height of Covid-19 lockdowns, a playful delirium set in after months of isolation at home blended into hours of isolation on the road. These images share the feeling of staying up too late and laughing at jokes that aren’t that funny when revisited with rested eyes.

MADELEINE PECK WAGNER

Over the past few years, my work has evolved away from solely making things that are outwardly focused, and into a practice that is motivated by introspection, vulnerability, and humor. The works currently on display here push in opposite aesthetic directions to a similar end; which is to say a deeper cultural knowledge via punchy visual one-liners steeped in righteous humor and pathos. Touching tangentially on ideas of conspicuous consumption and transformation, my work encompassed ideas of opposing ends, unexpected beauty, and magical thinking.

Within an aesthetic framework that pulls from the margins of materiality and art history, the pieces presented here function like the accidental poetry of manifestos.