A sampling of serious art

Two shows in St. Petersburg reassure art lovers that standards still exist.

By MARY ANN MARGER, Times Art Critic

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 24, 1999

ST. PETERSBURG -- In most galleries this time of year, space is given over to art suited for gifts, which tend to be light in size and content.

So it's pleasantly surprising to find art shows that beckon by their nature to be taken seriously. Two that do are the James Michaels show at Fusion Gallery and, a couple of blocks away, the Florida Artist Group show at the Arts Center.

At Fusion, Michaels presents his first exhibit in two years. He calls it a fun show, an apt description for canvases boldly painted and collaged with pop icons (Howdy Doody, American flags, Barbie). His work is distinctive, yet it fits very much into this age of postmodern pluralization.

Men's dress shirts intrigue him enough to be repeated 72 times in a triptych, Shirts and Ties Required. A single tie in the bottom row is red. You don't see all the shirts because many have been wiped out with thick swaths of white paint. It's an old obsession of Michaels', to labor over a work, then in an instant to conceal it. Though the act of concealment is part of Michaels' artistic process, it also makes for a more intriguing result than would rows of shirts and ties. It represents a certain disdain for uniformity in a free society.

At a glance WHAT: Fusion Gallery WHERE: 540 Central Ave., St. Petersburg WHEN: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, through Jan. 5 COST: Free CALL: (727) 894-7271 WHAT: Florida Artists Group, Areas III, IV and VII WHERE: The Arts Center, 719 Central Ave., St. Petersburg WHEN: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday ALSO: Sale on selected holiday items Tuesday and Wednesday only COST: Free CALL: (727) 822-7872

In Tumble Dry, it's the lady logo from Old Dutch Cleanser that is being tumbled along with a dress shirt, a striped robe and colored circles. Michaels went through an "Old Dutch" period a dozen or so years ago; like an old friend, she's back.

In more ways than one, he evokes another image from his past in Look ... Up in the Sky. The bird and the plane are there in collage, but the painted image, bursting out of a (what else?) dress shirt, is (who else?) Superman. Before Michaels turned to fine art, he was a commercial artist -- and a body builder. Is this a self-portrait? Is Jim Michaels, not Clark Kent, the true alter ego of Superman?

The show is kid-friendly. Bring an imaginative youngster if you can.

It has also been a hot seller, with 30 of 38 works quickly selling from the original display. Don't worry; he has brought in some fine backups.

Beyond the glittery gifts in the first several galleries at the Arts Center, visitors may overlook the fine art by the Florida Artist Group in the last room.

The group, a statewide non-profit organization, was established 50 years ago "to stimulate attainment of the highest standards of creative art within the state of Florida." Artists from three of the group's seven regions have work on view.

As might be expected from a group with such a long history, some venerable names are among the exhibitors: Moe Mitchell, Jeanne Norman Chase, Florence Putterman, Marjorie Dimmitt, Marjorie Dean Andruk, Bruce Gregory, Lois Bartlett Tracy, Barbara Kale Harris, Mamie Harrison, Shirley Frank. Many have not shown here in a long time.

Jean Grastorf's self-portrait appears interspersed among the fronds in Palm. A member of the American Watercolor Society, the St. Petersburg painter shows her own palm clasped around her brushes.

Muriel Green sets her abstract Global Image in motion through swishes of white paint, some dashed on quickly, some reworked to opacity. The show is hung so that viewers can make comparisons. Ruth Andress Stone's sunny setting for an old gnarled tree is close enough to Lee Ackert's Fossils and Roots, set upon a fantasy landscape, for comparison of handling a similar subject. Marilyn Niederman's In Barbie's Closet, reminiscent of Louise Nevelson's constructions, is a "black humor" treatment of an icon of our age (also noted in Jim Michaels' work at Fusions).

The entire show is reassuring for anyone who fears that all artists have forsaken the basic elements of fine art.