Arts Council of Hillsborough County
As you’re commuting to work on busy Tampa Bay area roads for the next year, you may be in for a treat for the eyes that can deflate the stress of driving too.
Look out and up for the works of seven local artists being displayed on digital and static billboards along popular routes, thanks to a competition organized by the
Arts Council of Hillsborough County and hosted by
OUTFRONT Media.
The commissioned works, some original and some part of larger images in a different format, were created by local artists:
- Caitlin Albritton of Tampa specializes in 3-dimensional oil paintings that manipulate the boundaries between painting and sculpture.
- Joan Garcia of Lutz paints realistic landscapes, wildlife and still life paintings in oil and acrylics, illustrations and portraits in colored pencil.
- Zuri Grimm of Tampa illustrates body dysmorphia with influences from Modigliani, and indigenous artwork of Africa and Australia.
- Leon ‘Tes One’ Bedore of Tampa creates works of art that contrast traditional opposites, i.e. nature with technology, grime with grace, etc. He portrays the opposing forces coexisting in order to create paintings that are both symbolic and metaphorical.
- Luisa Padro of Tampa, who goes by Artysta LuLu, is an expressionist painter whose style mixes vivid, energetic, happy colors with cartoons and images of the cosmos.
- Laura Waller of Tampa, a former financial planner, paints fulltime and is currently working on her series, Port Tampa Bay. A solo exhibition of her latest works will open January 2017 at Clayton Galleries in Tampa Florida.
- Dee Youmans of Lutz combines elements such as realistic faces, landscapes, found objects or graphic elements into different contexts to tell stories. with their layers of elements, creating its very own narrative. She uses various art styles and techniques that blend into one image.
The art will move around to a variety of available billboards throughout the year. Initially, works will rotate on display starting Monday, June 29, at the following locations:
- Dale Mabry Highway, .5 mile north of Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa, visible to northbound drivers (this is just north of Raymond James Stadium)
- State Road 60 (aka Brandon Blvd) .5 mile east of I-75 in Hillsborough County, visible to eastbound drivers (this is just east of the Westfield mall)
In addition, the works of two artists will also be installed on non-digital billboards in July:
- Joan Garcia on Boy Scout Boulevard east of Westshore Boulevard in Tampa, visible to westbound drivers
- Tes One at the intersection of U.S. 19 and Jasmine Boulevard in New Port Richey in Pasco County, visible to southbound drivers
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Read more articles by Diane Egner.
Diane Egner is a community leader and award-winning journalist with more than four decades of experience reporting and writing about the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. She serves on the boards of the University of South Florida Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications Advisory Council, The Institute for Research in Art (Graphicstudio, the Contemporary Art Museum, and USF’s Public Art Program) Community Advisory Council, Sing Out and Read, and StageWorks Theatre Advisory Council. She also is a member of Leadership Florida and the Athena Society. A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a BA in journalism, she won the top statewide award for editorial writing from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors while at The Tampa Tribune and received special recognition by the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists for creative work as Content Director at WUSF Public Media. Past accomplishments and community service include leadership positions with Tampa Tiger Bay Club, USF Women in Leadership & Philanthropy (WLP), Alpha House of Tampa Bay, Awesome Tampa Bay, Florida Kinship Center, AIA Tampa Bay, Powerstories, Arts Council of Hillsborough County, and the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. Diane and her husband, Sandy Rief, live in Tampa.