Two artists are excited about their latest work on display at The ArtLofts, a community of 19 working artist studios, in downtown St. Pete.
Art Lofts is located directly above the Florida Craft Art Gallery at 5th and Central. Its entrance on 5th Street is marked with a sign over two red doors.
"It's wonderful to have to be in an environment with other artists," said Mavis Gibson, a commercial designer turned artist.
Gibson and Jeannine Hascall are the artists behind the Art Lofts’ latest installation “Vertical Surfaces: Walls, Windows and Wallpaper.”
Jeannine Hascall's work in the latest show is mostly in hues of black, white and grey. She also hangs fabric, ripping and re-sewing it.
"People tell me my work reminds them of wallpaper," explained Hascall, who is into making old things new.
It’s her work on canvas with stencils and pattern that is reminiscent of a velvety red and gold foiled wallpaper in a fancy French restaurant. But her work in the show is mostly in hues of black, white and grey. She also hangs fabric, ripping and re-sewing it.
"Well, I find fabric wherever I can-- mostly in junk shops," Hascall said, “I like the way things drape and flow and move."
Gibson works with paint and paper to add dimension.
"By taking the paint and applying it to paper and expanding it around the painting, it's almost as if the paintings emerge from the wall,” Gipson said of her piece, “There Would Always be Spring.”
In Gipson’s piece, “There Would Always be Spring,” (left) the low afternoon light of the fall hits the façade of a Parisian building with a bare tree and lone person on the sidewalk. But there is more. Painted newsprint has been added to the edges of the painting at different places and at different angles.
Art Lofts opens every Second Saturday for St. Petersburg’s Art Walk. Additionally, you can see the instillation between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.