Pictured: Radiant Spectrum by Adele Webster. Photo by Phil Lederer.

The Tampa-based Drew Marc Gallery is making its first foray into the Sarasota scene with Colors of the Coast, an exhibition celebrating the natural palette of Florida’s Suncoast and currently on display in the Lobby Gallery of Art Ovation Hotel. “We wanted something vibrant and bright, inspired by the sunsets, by the water,” says gallery owner Drew Marc. “But this is just the beginning.”

Featuring 21 works from the Drew Marc Gallery collection, viewers will recognize contributions from several Sarasota artists, such as Andrea Dasha Reich, working in her trademark resin, as well as Susan Von Gries, Ellen Kirwan and Elaine Clarfield Gitalis, showing alongside national artists exclusive to the Drew Marc Gallery. These include relative newcomers like Toronto-based painter Cobie Cruz, known for his bold, blocky and floral abstractions, and even famed neo-expressionist Hunt Slonen, who once shared the scene with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

“He’s one of the last living legends,” says Marc. But that also means Slonen’s work doesn’t stay on the wall long. Each piece in the show is for sale—with 15% going towards a scholarship fund for Ringling College students—and goes home with the buyer that day, to be replaced by another piece from the Drew Marc Gallery. And come January, the gallery will be featuring a lot more of Slonen’s work, large-scale and some even incorporating diamond dust in the creation. “We’re expanding his collection heavily,” Marc says—and there’s a good chance some of those will make their way to Sarasota.

Walking the Lobby Gallery, Colors of the Coast is largely an exercise in abstraction, from Gitalis’ acrylics, busy and geometric, to the surprisingly monochromatic minimalism of Ernesto Kunde, who reduces the theme to slashes of white and grey. But there is the occasional more representational work, such as Hans Peterson’s playful figures with television-set heads, and even a lone sculptural work—a surfboard mosaiced with angled mirrors that fracture the viewer and stymie any attempt at traditional self-reflection.

With so many different interpretations on display, Marc hopes each viewer can find their own Florida sunset in the show. “I want that same energy,” he says. “I want everyone to leave with a smile on their face.”

And maybe a new piece of art.

Currently on display in the Lobby Gallery of Art Ovation Hotel, Colors of the Coast runs through May 2025.

Pictured: Radiant Spectrum by Adele Webster. Photo by Phil Lederer.