Some folks in Italy may be disappointed but Sarasota reaps the benefits as international artist Massimo Meda opens his first gallery in the United States—and temporarily clears his walls in Milan to stock it. With two galleries in Italy and two in China, the newly revamped space on Pineapple Avenue marks Meda’s introduction to the North American market with 63 original works, including two towering new creations made specially for the opening—one depicting the Florida pier and the other the New York City skyline from a Central Park vantage, both eye-popping exemplars of that singular Meda style. “It is my ambition,” says Meda, “to bring my art into the world and as an artist to make my voice known.”

The founder of tridimensionalismo, an ultramodern technique by which one creates three-dimensional space through plenteous paint layering, Meda blurs the line between painting and sculpture with hyper-realistic seascapes and floral panoramas where corals and florets extend and embrace the viewer. “They’re like real flowers because the shape is real,” says Meda. “If you put them outside, they will have the same shadow that real flowers have and you have the same sensation as when looking at nature.” Working on a steel “canvas,” the silk-smooth backdrops contrast this textural nature with gleaming tranquility.

A self-professed “student of color” for more than 40 years, Meda’s mastery rings true with a singular palette both straightforward and unapologetically bold. Yellows shine and greens glow and blues burst from the scene with a near-palpable presence enveloping the viewer in the artist’s enthusiastic vision. Using paint designed for Italian sports cars such as Ferraris and Porsches, Meda gives the work an extra shine, and judicious use of fluorescent paints give each an idyllic, almost otherworldly sense of wonder displayed under black light. There resides a certain playfulness in Meda’s work, further exemplified by the little painted pianos hidden through many of his pieces, a callback to the artist’s former career as a concert pianist. Also on display are the artist’s Meda Blocks—carved concrete creations resembling Mesoamerican architecture or aerial cityscapes that function as sculpture or furniture. The gallery itself reflects these Meda Blocks, with the front desk fashioned from the same material and the gallery floor and ceiling echoing concentric rectangles in the cavernous space designed by Meda and constructed by Hoyt Architects. With pieces ranging in price from $1,500 to $50,000, prospective owners of an original Massimo Meda can also commission personalized paintings sized to their wall.