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| metro art by Megan Voeller |
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Artist Profile: Lenné Nicklaus-Ball
When artist Lenné Nicklaus-Ball lost her grandmother in 2004, she gained a source of artistic inspiration. Tapping into a vast collection of costume jewelry left behind by her grandmother, Peg Nunn — a St. Petersburg philanthropist with a flair for dressing stylishly — Nicklaus-Ball began to create vibrant, glitzy assemblages from the material. Starting with an ostrich egg (a symbol of rebirth suggested by South African art), she festooned each piece with pearls, gems, feathers and fur, sometimes creating pieces that resemble animals.
Both adults and children will deligh
t in Wild Spirits, an exhibition at The Arts Center featuring Nicklaus-Ball and three other local sculptors whose playful creations explore human, animal and plant forms. For Nicklaus-Ball, the exhibit presented an opportunity to go big and bold with her glittery statements. Visitors to the exhibition will see the original, 14-inch tall versions of her giraffe and zebra sculptures as well as new versions that are 12-14-feet tall.
“They’re whimsical,
and they’re fun,”
said Nicklaus-Ball.
Nicklaus-Ball—a Pittsburgh native and life-long artist whose family owns the Sirata Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach—recently partnered with HSN to market giclée prints of her abstract paintings under the brand Art by Lenné. In the meantime, her sculptures travel to museums and arts centers around the Southeast, coaxing smiles from visitors wherever they go.
Wild Spirits: Lenné Nicklaus-Ball, Candace Knapp and Felipe Packard & Ricardo de la Vega runs June 12-Aug. 15 at The Arts Center, 719 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. For more information, call 727-822-7872 or go to theartscenter.org.
—Megan Voeller
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Andy Warhol's Legacy On Display
Andy Warhol, Flowers (1970), Screenprint on paper
©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ARS, NY
There’s no mistaking artwork by Andy Warhol for one by any other artist. And yet, Warhol’s best-known works—his paintings and screenprints—invariably duplicate an existing cultural icon (the Campbell’s soup can, the Brillo box) or an appropriated photograph (e.g., of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis or Elvis Presley). How did an artist whose ‘trademark’ is the reproduction of pop culture become revered as one of America’s most original visual visionaries?
A new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts offers insight into Warhol’s legacy and his unmistakable style. Andy Warhol Portfolios: Life and Legends features 72 of the artist’s enduring screenprints, with subjects ranging from Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali to Mickey Mouse and Howdy Doody. Warhol’s Flowers, that famed cluster of brightly hued hibiscuses, is included, as are less familiar works like the Endangered Species series. Each bears testament to Warhol’s radical aesthetic proposition: that the omnipresent and endlessly reproducible images and icons that accompany 20th (and now, 21st) century life should be fodder for ‘high art.’
The prints span key moments in Warhol’s career, from his heyday in the 1960s—when he rocked the art world by jettisoning a successful career as a commercial illustrator to break taboos as a Pop artist—to the 1980s, a period when hot young painters like Jean-Michel Basquiat looked to Warhol for inspiration. Since his death in 1987, no American artist has captured the public imagination in quite the same way. Accompanying works include a portrait of Warhol by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and Keith Haring’s playful Andy Mouse, a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the artist.
Andy Warhol Portfolios: Life and Legends runs May 16-Aug. 16 at the Museum of Fine Arts, 255 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg. For more information, call 727-896-2667 or go to fine-arts.org.
—Megan Voeller
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