Event Slideshow

We were thrilled to present the following artists at Platform # 7.

Please respect copyrights as we provide you with these previews of their work.

Diana Ferguson Acrylic Painting Apopka, Florida My paintings are about the human spirit. It is my wish to image the spirit within us that connects us as people. I paint to express what every soul experiences: the daily tasks, the emotions, the joys, and the sorrows. My people are painted different non-realistic colors because I do not want them seen as races or genders, but in sameness, all human. We all eat, love, hurt and share in our existence. As groups we call the truths of our lives by different names, but we all have the same heart threaded through us and in that fabric is our commonality and our redemption from ourselves. My greatest wish is that my paintings related to what humanity feels and experiences as we are all searching for the meaning of our life journeys.
Shawn Gravitt Mix Media Winter Haven, Florida Describe yourself and your artwork. Myself, Here today. My art Nieve. In what way are you a visionary? Like a Bumble bee. No one told him he can’t fly. How does your artwork relate to the theme, “Icons & Visionaries”? Hopefully (my work) allows people to slip into it and find something “they” are looking for.
Trent Manning Mix Media Winter Haven, Florida My artwork and I are actually quite similar. I take life and my art very seriously, but I also have a very “unique” sense of humor that shows in my work. I have the ability to take things that exist only in my visions and imagination and bring them to life for others to experience…. Much of my art is made of found or discarded material. By using these recycled materials, things that would have ended up in the trash or laying on the side of the road now can be displayed as art.
Catherine Stetson Photography Lakeland, Florida My art reveals a deeply personal and spiritual aspect of my inner being. I have been given a gift that expresses my visions. We live in a multi-dimensional world on so may levels from cultural, to religious, to what sort of salad dressing we prefer. I pull things together and harmonize them via time and light. My artwork is not traditional, but done through traditional approaches in combination with new technology. I like to see how the camera captures time. As the photographer, I am in control of that time. I use my digital camera as if it were a regular camera. I can’t help but look through the viewfinder and compose a photograph. I love that I can take a photo, see it on the screen and print it in one sitting. WOW !
Lisa Erdman Graphic & Media Lakeland, Florida My artwork involves a variety of media such as digital painting, animation, video, performance, and writing. I often find that different media inform each other in the creative process. Writing a poem, for example, may trigger visual ideas for a painting, and vice versa. I also find that experimenting with a wide range of media may help to create new ways of expressing concepts or human emotion. On a conceptual level, some of my work addresses cultural, social and political issues from a personal perspective, while other pieces serve as a means of pure experimentation with form, color, motion and texture. In much of my work, particularly through poetry, I attempt to capture the essence of ordinary experiences such as taking a walk, watching the sky, listening to music, or driving a car. I enjoy exploring how such simple experiences can evoke vivid imagery or distant memories, and heighten a person’s awareness of his/her immediate environment. Drawing from my own Dominican-American heritage, a good portion of my artwork examines issues of cultural constructs and ethnic identity. Throughout my life, I frequently travel between the cultures of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, spending time with relatives in both cities. As a young woman growing up in a bicultural environment, I was often faced with questions addressing the ambiguity of my own cultural identity. Out of a desire to explore the nature of my mixed ethnic heritage, and in an effort to integrate elements of these two different cultures into my life, I began to address these questions of ethnicity and race in my work.
"Crossgirl" Kris Bennett Mix Media Lakeland, Florida Describe yourself and your artwork Outsider describes both. What I do is make art crosses from found objects. In what way are you a visionary? Webster defines visionary as “one whose ideas or projects are impractical.” That’s me, impractical ideas and artwork. I’m not a visionary in the sense that I create from visions, but I wish I had that gift. Who or what has most influenced your art? Howard Finster because he followed his vision and his heart to create exactly what he wanted. Of course my work is also inspired by the church. The Catholic church and the Greek Orthodox have the best art .
Thomas Mack Photography Lakeland, Florida <view show> There are a variety of vocations that I tend to be involved with. Projects range from mediations and advocacy for my consulting clients to farming and internet work. Creatively, my photography consists of – travel, landscape, product, and portrait styles – all of which may be subjected to some form of digital manipulation or not. As I compose and capture images, I may pre-visualize the image as black and white, color, infrared, toned or some combination. There is also the possibility that once the image is up on my monitor, I change direction completely from what I “thought” I might do with the image. I stop and interpret time using my images for others to view and contemplate in the future.
Elena Phillips Photography Lakeland, Florida I have a degree in fine art with a concentration in painting. My chosen medium now is photography. I take a painterly approach to my artwork, frequently looking for interesting composition, and occasionally manipulating digital images. I am a visionary in that, rather than photographing objects, I work with shadows, light, and reflections. Through the lens of my camera I create visual effects that take the viewer a step beyond the perceived reality of the subject. My work takes traditional iconography and moves it into a visionary realm. It alters the image of an object into the unexpected.
Karis Medina Photography Lakeland, Florida Idealism is something mentioned under the definition of the word visionary. Whether socially, politically, personally or artistically, I can be described by the phase naively idealistic. I think that this naiveté has helped me retain a sense of honesty and purity in the work that I produce. Recently I have been strongly influenced by artists……who have explored and challenged the definitions and conventions of art. These questions of meaning, communication and their deterioration are things I try to view through a Christian perspective and explore in my artwork. www.cafecubano.blogspot.com
Candace Knapp Wood Resin & Clay sculpture Brandon, Florida I relate to the outside world by building things and making my inner revelations real in the outer world. I have made my living for thirty years carving realistic statues for churches? but I think that the images that touch the soul are far wider than what we can see in any religion. I want my work to touch the soul and that includes using humor to do it. I am participating in Platform because I want to help spread art in our civilization.
Katherine Langford & Lief Langford Mix Media Lakeland, Florida Katherine: My work usually has roots in a poem or group of poems that manifest themselves as words that become images. I like the didactic aspect of visual art, but I also like to leave enough ambiguity so that the viewer can make their own stories or connections. Of particular delight for me are the moving parts. I like to watch people wonder if they can touch or interact with the artwork. Fertility is founded in: the furrow and plowing single minded with serendipityas splendid as the crook in the brushstroke and dancing stoking the fires seedmanness Earth is my best palette: finger dragging deep for the big seeds i want nothing more than some part of me to be remembered as worthy seeded with grace desiring to gift life with extravagance opulent wreaths woven succulents cactus flowers strung like life origami Folded and treasured for moments: caught like the light spiking the darkness… resplendent with visions. Lief: My art is detached; it’s a double-bind study on a boy named Leif, the brink of ego pushed through a cannon blast to the soft, fluffy comfort zone of cheap ephemera and soft porn. A goal of my art has always been total honesty, a play-by-play accordion tug of time. To reach these Freudian playgrounds of cold, bleeding truth, I would have to slice my mind open and pick apart the lobes of my brain. Instead, I focus on my immediate surroundings, the subtle dripping of juicy celebrity facts and 8 o’clock COPS marathons. The world is a giant puppet show, and no one, including me, can detect the seams.
Brian Simpson Mix Media Lakeland, Florida For as long as I can remember I have always had this desire to draw, paint and create. As a child, I was fascinated with a clean sheet of paper and a freshly sharpened pencil or even a fresh set of water color paint and some construction paper. These things are what pushed me into many an adventure growing up. I simply couldn’t get enough. When we were little, “Santa” used to give my brother and I coloring books with tracing paper over each page. We’d spend hours just tracing the pages of popular Disney and Looney Tunes characters, never really satisfied with our lines against theirs – just couldn’t seem to get it right. For me, it’s that “not being able to get it right” that really has driven me to the type of work I do now. For so long I’ve been a perfectionist in my craft, never allowing myself the freedom to simply create, despite public opinion or artistic scrutiny. The pieces that I now present are much more inviting and, ironically as it may seem, much more rewarding. They are a release and a vacation from my day job of being a graphic designer which, as you can imagine, requires my perfection in so many ways due to the fact that someone’s vested interest is at stake (and so is me having food on the table for that matter). With all that said, my influence comes from a simple smile or pleasant nod as I flip through the pages of my sketchbooks with friends or display my paintings in coffee shops or see how a company flourishes as a result of a marketing piece I might have created for them. Sure, there are artists I admire, but admire them too much and you’ll find that your work is merely an extension of theirs. I’m very self motivated. This is my greatest strength and greatest weakness it seems. When things go right, you get the pat on the back – when things go wrong, you also get the smack upside the head.
Tammy Rejimbal Pastels Orlando, Florida My art is about having fun in the act of creativity, enjoyment in the process of the image and its outcome is important, but should not be taken seriously. My images are about “good times” utilizing vivid, light catching color and extreme surface texture. I focus on creating a surface that reflects and shines, with the hope of drawing the viewer into my work by my use of these elements and wearing a pair of sunglasses! My imagery is not about the car, or the year, it’s about color, light and control. Having grown up with classic cars, I appreciate their deep quality and the people that passionately collect them – restoring the classic automobile ICON in a fresh coat of paint and a new perspective…
Jarred Bogan Painting, Sculpture, photography Winter Haven, Florida Describe yourself and your artwork. I am an artisit that runs the gamet in mediums used. I generally focus on cement sculpture that has a time based component, as well as abstract painting and nature photography. How does your artwork relate to the theme, “Icons & Visionaries”? In my paintings, I create a world of my own imaginary forms that are based on the structure and forms around us. In my sculpture, I combine mundane forms with unexpected changes and my photography documents the natural world as I see it. In what way are you a visionary? I use my knowledge of the world around me to elucidate thoughts and connections from my viewers that are possibly otherwise unaddressed. www.artmajeur.com/jarredbogan
International Baccalaureate Art Students Bartow, Florida The pieces chosen for exhibit show a diversity of style, concept and approach and demonstrate IB’s characteristic emphasis upon the intellectual and aesthetic development of its students. As well as teaching technical facility, the IB Art student receives a firm grounding in the historical, international, and aesthetic aspects of the arts. Students are encouraged to explore a particular area of interest, research the subject and bring it into visual focus through two or three dimensional art.
"Expressions of Glory" Gospel Choir Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church Mulberry, Florida “Expressions of Glory” is a dynamic group of your people ages 12 to 26. They are from Bradley, FL and have been singing together all across Central Florida for 10 years. They are based at Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church in Bradley, FL. In addition to singing they also perform pantomimes. They are either attending or are graduates of Mulberry Senior High School. This wonderful group of gospel singers performs under the leadership of their Pastor, Eugene Kendrick.
Music by the band "JOON" Lakeland, Florida
Vital Spark Performance Art Group Lakeland, Florida

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