Cesar Aguilera and Rachel Moorman featured for September at ACT Gallery

Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, September 5, from 6 to 10 pm for the opening reception and art walk for our September artists. “Anthologies and Other Echoes” by Cesar Aguilera and off the Main Gallery, Rachel Moorman will be showing her “story-telling” art.  This exhibit continues through September 29, 2014. 

Cesar Aguilera was born in Quito, Ecuador; he navigated his childhood by virtue of creative observation, learning from his first curiosities onward that imagination and ingenuity have critical roles to play within our human experiences of life.  Exploring these roles has led to a lifetime of experimental works and has taken Cesar through a vast spectrum of mediums, techniques, materials and subject matter.  Although his approach is always in flux, his objective remains constant: to use art as a means of contributing to the design of solutions regarding problems which plague our world and the societies that inhabit it.

 

Artist Statement by Cesar Aguilera

“Anthologies and other Echoes”   As humans we have conquered every other animal species and transformed the land to our liking; we conquered the planet. But, now what?  Anthologies and other Echoes portrays all of humanity’s achievements in science, arts, politics and all the fields of human thought as seen from the future, looking back at this civilization that had it all, conquered all, but didn’t know what to do with it and lose it all at the end.  We haven’t reached that point yet. This dramatic presentation is a way to emphasize that we are still on time to curb our insatiable hunger, reduce consumption and use all of our brilliance and ingenuity to reverse the damage already done. There is no other planet ship like this. We repair the damage to stay afloat; or we will surely drown.

Off the Main Gallery:
Rachel Mooran’s is an artist native of Chicago, Illinois. She has called Southwest Forida her home since 1999. Rachel specializes in several different mediums, but is known predominately for her ‘story telling’ acrylic paintings, custom painted shoes and her unique Japanese paper-cutting i). Rachel has won over twenty–five awards in shows around the Chicagoland area. She has worked with designers in Southwest Florida since 2001, doing mural work.  She is currently working on several new paintings and paper-cut jewelry art pieces.

 

May 2, 2014 Arts for ACT Gallery Guest Artists Dale Weber, Allan Tiller and Mary-Louise Hooper

Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, May 2, from 6 to 10 pm for the opening reception and art walk for our May featured artists: Mixed Media/Found Objects Artist Dale Weber, Photographer Allan Tiller and Painter Dr. Mary Louise Hooper.  This exhibit continues through June 2, 2014.  

 Dale Weber   -  Searching for the significant hidden within the insignificant, the art of Dale Weber reveals an inner beauty of the mundane. His art is a metaphoric vehicle for the overlooked, abandoned, and forgotten elements within today's society. It urges a reassessment of values in a disposable world.   Emerging as a young painter in the early 1970’s, Dale Weber was invariably drawn to subjects that bore the passage of time with a quiet dignity. In his continued quest to find the essence of age, he required a different form of expression. Eight years ago, he turned to ‘objet trouve’; the art of found objects. His 2D assemblages and 3D constructions offer a new perspective. The subject has become the medium.  Dale Weber only uses discarded materials are no longer able to serve their original purpose. For this reason, he prefers the term reinvented rather than recycled. He uses items in an ‘as found’ condition defining the natural beauty of lives well-lived. By careful selection and placement, these objects enter into dialogues expressing the artist’s views that range from social commentary to the philosophical.

“My goal is to inspire others to see the world through new eyes. Often beauty is cloaked in shabbiness. We must look beneath the surface to find the intrinsic value.  In today’s world all deserve a second look, a second chance.  Awareness is the first step of change.” ~ Dale Weber.

Allan Tiller  is a SW Florida resident and photographer by choice, having moved here from the Chesapeake Bay area in 2003. The diversity of natural beauty is a constant source of inspiration.   After a career including Illustration, teaching at The Art Institute of Philadelphia and painting, photography has become the medium of choice, largely due to the changing physical abilities brought about by Multiple Sclerosis.   He takes great pleasure in sharing his vision of the unseen details of the natural world.

Dr. Mary-Louise Biasotti Hooper is a national and international prize-winning artist, painting seascapes, landscapes, cityscapes, abstraction and still life. Her purpose is to bring viewers a moment of respite and beauty in their stressful lives by taking them away to another place.  As one buyer stares, her work is "...peaceful calming nature scenes with the ability to convert deep feelings to canvas".  Born in Greenwich Village, New York City, to an Italian immigrant family, the yearly art shows in Washington Square Park influenced her desire to paint.  Since art was not encouraged as a way to make a living, she entered the field of Education. Her art became a self-taught hobby until completing art degrees in 1999 & 2002.  Today, besides producing art, she conducts art classes and workshops for adults in all media. Influenced greatly by the work of Cezanne and de Steel, she calls much of her work "Slightly Expressionistic".  Recent innovative work ventures into abstracted images. 

Opening April 4th 2014 at ACT Gallery - George Mitchell, Ray Hernandez and Roy Benton III

Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, April 4, from 6 to 10 pm for the opening reception and art walk for our April featured artists Photographer and Author George Mitchell, Painter Ray Hernandez and Sculptor Roy Benton III.  This exhibit continues through April 28, 2014. 

1967 Photography by George Mitchell

George Mitchell has been making serious photographs since his senior year in high school, when he began photographing traditional blues artists he located or visited with a Kodak Instamatic camera. He began making more professional photographs in 1967, when the University of Minnesota School of Mass Communication and Journalism lent him a camera.  He went to Mississippi for the summer to record, photograph, and interview traditional blues musicians.  This trip resulted in a Master of Arts paper and his first book, Blow My Blues Away, was published by Louisiana State University Press.  For several years in the late 1960's and early 1970's, he was a reporter in Columbus, Georgia.  Under the tutelage of the photographers at the Columbus Ledger, he took the photographs, which appeared with his stories.  At the Columbus Times, he was a reporter, a photographer, and later executive editor.  During that period, he produced his second book of photographs and text, I’m Somebody Important.  He then decided to become a photography teacher, and returned to the University of Minnesota where he studied photography teaching in both the journalism and art departments.  He taught photography in Atlanta at four high schools for a total of 25 years.  He also authored five more books of photographs and interviews.  There have been a number of solo exhibitions of his photographs over the years, including three in Atlanta; one in Columbus, Georgia (a number of his photographs are in the permanent collection of the Columbus Museum of Art); Sacramento, California; Utrecht, Holland; Jackson, Mississippi (at the Mississippi Museum of Art); Clarksdale, Mississippi; and Fort Myers.  Mitchell, who spent his first two years in Fort Myers, before moving to Atlanta, has returned to Fort Myers, where he continues to photograph for exhibition and publication.

 

Bon Bon by Hernandez

Raymond Hernandez was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Puerto Rican, descent.  He grew up amongst the rural nature of LaBelle, Florida and developed a passion for botany, art, and photography.  Hernandez was awarded scholarships from the U.S. Sugar Corp. and the Art Institute of Dallas. His study of fine art and graphic communication, began his career in Texas.  In 1985, he moved to New York City, exhibiting his art while illustrating and designing for such cliental as: Estee Lauder, Elizabeth Arden, Lancome, Coty, Revlon and Avon. His art has been published both national and internationally on cosmetic packaging, shopping bags, promotional, and novelty products.  Hernandez returned to Florida in 2005 to focus on his fine art and encountered numerous artists on a similar path of exhibiting, creating and working together to bring the arts to Southwest Florida.  He currently teaches art to children and teens in various Lee, Hendry, and Glades County programs. He was awarded The City of Fort Myers Art and Culture Individual Artist Grant for 2012, 2013 and strives to keep the arts alive.  For more information Email: ray06usa@yahoo.com


Roy L. Benton III a Florida native, grew up in Fort Myers. He is a fourth generation of Marine Contractors and is a Certified General Contractor. Benton, in his spare time enjoys creating art. His art consists of metal, wood sculptures and photography.  “I taught myself how to weld as a young child when I would go to work with my father at his marine construction company.  My grandfather built custom homes and I learned woodworking from him.  My uncle, Darryl Pottorf, an international artist taught me an assortment of valuable techniques. He loves where he grew up and his art reflects things that have been a part of his life.  Benton loves to fish, dive and enjoys the outdoors. His latest collection of artwork reflects this and revolves around the marine life and his passion for nature. 

Roy Benton III Metal Sculpture

 

"Reanimations" by Sanibel Artist Andrew Corke, Baseball Art of Michael Pohlman and Mermaids and More by Martha Dodd

Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, March 7, from 6 to 10 pm for the opening reception and art walk for our March featured artists, Sanibel Artist, Andrew Corke. In addition, showing off the main gallery are Michael Pohlman and Martha Dodd.  This exhibit continues through March 31, 2014. 

Andrew Corke grew up on Sanibel Island, a community that is very focused on the natural environment in which they live. By growing up next door to places such as the JN Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, he felt the need to create art that brings attention to the ongoing issue of habitat loss, global climate change, over-consumption, and the unstable future of the neighbors he grew up with, such as ospreys, indigo snakes, and sea turtles. Andrew Corke knew he wanted to be an artist from a young age, and graduated with an art degree from Florida Gulf Coast University in 2012. He has since been working on pieces which he labels as Reanimations, further experimenting with new and innovative methods to use the materials he has rescued from their would have been destination of the local dump.  The materials are an important aspect of his work.  By making the work three-dimensional and out of recycled waste Andrew hoped to invoke the feel that these creatures are being reanimated from the trash, reaching out and toward the viewer. The process for most of the Reanimations involves building up a supporting structure out of wire or foam, stuffing it with recycled newspaper and then building up layers of recycled materials on top of this support structure. Andrew states, “We live on a planet that has a limited number of resources, these resources will not be around forever, neither will animals, neither will humans; by using what we already have as wisely as possible, by reducing what we use, reusing and recycling I am confident that we can give the place we live, new life.”

Baseball Art

Michael Pohlman was raised in Beloit, Wisconsin, where his art training started in a well organized public school program. Mike attended Rollins College and Bradley University in the early 60's on a scholarship for baseball.  He was told that Art and athletics did not mix. He graduated with majors in Physical Education, U.S. History, and Art. He taught all three subjects before moving to Chicago Heights, Illinois. He eventually became Coordinator of Physical Education and Varsity Baseball Coach at Bloom High School. His creative energies went into an innovative Outdoor Adventure curriculum and Baseball program that led him to the Illinois Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame Honors.

Mike began painting again in 1988. He won a spot in the Union Street Galley's inaugural show in 1995 and was offered a studio. Over a ten-year period, his work was shown in multiple venues in Chicago and its suburbs. His abstract series "Before Time" is an extension of his 60's training and his sports renderings incorporate his extensive knowledge of baseball and athletics. Mike says, "Art is like athletics to me. The discipline of the process is the same. You train yourself to use skills to compete for a desired outcome. Whatever the results, you continue to refine your performance along with looking for new ways to use your abilities to succeed."

Mike now paints in Fort Myers, Florida and is the Varsity Pitching Coach at Bishop Verot High School.  Baseball fans and art lovers alike should not miss this mixed media Baseball exhibit.

Martha Dodd grew up in Ohio, the daughter of an artist and a physician. To this day, Martha still finds both sides of her brain battling for superiority, but most days they work well together. She loved to draw, and took every art class that was available to her during the school year, and even some summer courses at the College of Wooster, Ohio.

Martha has found inspiration all around her in Florida, painting everything from humans and animals to birds and fish. She discovered a huge demand for murals, to her delight, and that has been the mainstay of her work for many years. She loves painting portraits. She is now a member of the Portrait and Figure Painters Society of SW Florida.  Her work has been published many times in various magazines such as Florida Design, Naples Illustrated, Gulf Shore Magazine, and the N Magazine.

 

Arts for ACT Gallery provides a quality, contemporary exhibition gallery featuring original art, limited edition prints, giclees, hand-crafted fine crafts, tee shirts, silver and glass bead jewelry, gourd art, raku, clay, and art cards. It is a “must see” destination for all art lovers and collectors, providing a unique opportunity for everyone to learn and enjoy art.  Highlighting the art of the current featured artist, the front gallery, reminiscent of galleries in SoHo, has 12 to 16 foot high ceilings, distressed brick walls, and warm wooden floors. It is a great opportunity to meet the gallery’s featured artist, enjoy some local food and wine, and engage in lively artful discussions.

 

February 2014 Scott Guelcher, Karen Shulman and Art by Kids with Cancer

Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, February 7, from 6 to 10 pm for the opening reception and art walk for our February featured artist, Scott Guelcher’s, “10 Years”. In addition, showing off the main gallery are photography of Karen Shulman and Art by Kids with Cancer.  This exhibit continues through March 3, 2014.  

"Snowbird Soup" Scott Guelcher

Scott Guelcher’s unique style of art has become well known in Southwest Florida. This blend of Pop Art Images and abstract backgrounds has attracted galleries to frequently display his artwork. Throughout his rising career as an artist he has received local and international recognition for his artwork. He has received awards and grants for his art including the 2008 Angels of the Arts Award for Best “New” Artist, 2010 Soaring Eagles Award from the FGCU Alumni Association, being selected as one of ten artists from the State of Florida to attend the Mac: Model for Artists Career Development Workshop in St. Petersburg, Florida, an invitation to a Marketing and Promoting your work workshop in Tequesta, Florida funded by a National Endowment of the arts grant through the Florida Department of Cultural Affairs and run by the Creative Capitol Foundation of New York City (a subsidy of the Andy Warhol Foundation that supports individual artists), and Arts and Culture Grants from the City of Fort Myers in 2008 and 2009. In addition to being an artist, Scott was the event chair for Art Royale 2008, the signature fundraiser for the Lee County Alliance of the Arts in Fort Myers and currently teaches art at Island Coast High School. Scott is always looking for new opportunities to educate and inspire the community through the arts. He is always trying to give back to the community through philanthropy by donating works of art to charity fundraisers for different causes. He promoted some global subjects during his span as an artist, specifically a solo exhibition titled “Bikinis and Bombs”. This show was about the testing of the hydrogen bomb by the United States government conducted in the Marshall Islands on Bikini Atoll. The show gained local and international recognition. His exhibitions, publications, and collections enrich the talent and education he has achieved. Scott will continue to draw on issues in the local community and global community as the inspiration for his artwork.

"Up in the Air" Karen Shulman

Karen Shulman began photographing in 2007 while living on the ocean in Hull, MA.  There,the changing lightscapes and dramatic skies prompted her to chase perfect light and capture the spectrum of vivid hues she witnessed. While her interests have expanded to include cityscapes and street photography, she continues to seek the most expressive light in her compositions.  Three of Karen’s photographs are in the permanent collection of the South Shore Hospital, Weymouth MA. This is her first solo show, “Window Dressing,” in Fort Myers. Her work has appeared in group shows in the Boston area, most recently three shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography: Winter Solstice Member Show, Harvey Stein’s Street Photography. Among the awards she has won are Best in Show from South Shore Art Association, Cohasset MA and honorable mention in the national show "The Art of Photography" in Plymouth MA.  Karen has studied photography with Harvey Stein, Lance Keimig, Scott Martin and Karen Davis and in workshops around the world including Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Prague, Taos, New Mexico and New York City. 

Art by Kids with Cancer is a project of The Young Artists Awards. This non-profit organization donates and delivers art supplies for use by pediatric oncology patients throughout the year in conjunction with the Child Life Specialists at the Pediatric Oncology/Hematology program at the Golisano Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida, while also showcasing the artwork of children with cancer.  The organization provides monetary assistance to local families in crisis facing the financial challenges of childhood, assisting those families with expenses such as groceries, transportation, and prescription costs.  The program's collaboration with trained specialists at the hospital utilizes art in a therapeutic setting to assist children with cancer. The art supplies purchased and donated are delivered for specialized instruction and are available for both art projects and the children's personal use. The program's multiple 'Art by Kids with Cancer' exhibits throughout the community raise awareness in the general community as to the importance of the arts in healing and the challenges faced by local families of children diagnosed with cancer.  The Young Artists Awards, a not for profit organization serving area children, mats and frames and then showcases, sells, and auctions selected pieces of the children’s artwork at numerous venues throughout Southwest Florida.  Trained volunteers will be available to talk about the artwork and program during the opening. More information can be found at www.youngartistsawards.org.  

"Little Loves" Art by Kids with Cancer

Arts for Act: An Artful New Year for Arts for ACT Gallery - Janu...

Arts for Act: An Artful New Year for Arts for ACT Gallery - Janu...: Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, January 03, 2014 from 6 to 10 pm for the opening r...

Arts for Act: An Artful New Year for Arts for ACT Gallery - Janu...

Arts for Act: An Artful New Year for Arts for ACT Gallery - Janu...: Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, January 03, 2014 from 6 to 10 pm for the opening r...