2022 – 2023 Season at Sarasota Orchestra’s Harmony Gallery

September 16 – Sarasota

Today Sarasota Orchestra announced six exhibitions at the Orchestra’s Harmony Gallery to take place during the 2022-2023 season, including a special new collaboration with Booker High School featuring works by students from the school’s venerated Visual and Performing Arts program.

The Harmony Gallery features local artists showcasing their work in solo exhibitions throughout the Orchestra’s season. These juried exhibitions feature artists with mediums ranging from painting to ink to photography. Twenty-five percent of all proceeds from the sale of the artwork benefit Sarasota Orchestra. The exhibits invite patrons to explore the collaboration between the visual and performing arts.

2022 – 2023 Harmony Gallery Schedule

Ian Dean

Exhibition Titled: Nostalgicons

Medium: Photography

About: A Sarasota native and Photography and Digital Imaging graduate of Ringling College, Ian Dean focuses on telling stories with spaces and objects. In his Nostalgicons series, he uses toys and media from his childhood like paint, turning old things forgotten and fondly remembered alike into something new that draws the eye. Color and form shape abstract collages full of the whimsical designs produced by hundreds of creative minds throughout the decades. The full series is made up of over 1,600 images and counting, and several thousand individual items. Most of them have been in the family since childhood.

Exhibit Dates: September 19 – October 31

Public Reception: Thursday, October 6, from 5:00 – 6:30 pm

Jim Stewart

Exhibition Titled: Minor Passages

Medium: Ink

About: Jim Stewart’s drawings and paintings are influenced by his career as a graphic designer. Fine arts and photographic experiences also inspire him to find a balance of impact and legibility with these abstractions: possibilities for describing nature. Stewart’s drawings are created using waterproof, lightfast India Inks. They offer intense color, dilute and glaze well to make new colors. These Minor Passages are drawn with bamboo pens and “brushes” of cut heavy paper. His work was previously chosen for Sarasota Music Festival posters from 2007 through 2011.

Exhibit Dates: November 1 – December 12

Public Reception: Thursday, November 3, from 5:00 – 6:30 pm

Claire Desjardins

Exhibition Titled: Living in Color

Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

About: Claire Desjardins is an award-winning abstract painter based in Quebec and Sarasota. She exhibits her paintings in galleries across North America and her work can be found in both private and corporate collections worldwide. Desjardins’ paintings, though abstract, take their visual cues from forms, colors, textures and patterns in nature. Beyond the canvas, Claire’s art transforms commercial and residential interiors, urban exteriors, housewares, furniture, package design and women’s apparel. Her work has appeared in major motion pictures and popular television shows.

Exhibit Dates: December 16 – January 23

Public Reception: Wednesday, January 18, from 5:00 – 6:30 pm

Laurel Maul

Exhibition Titled: Wondrous Things

Medium: Digital Painting

About: Laurel Maul has studied under noted painters of the Hudson River School as well as at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Ringling College. Her unique style can be described as expressionist with otherworldly references. Her background in psychotherapy explains the influence of emotions and dreams on her work. Laurel has painted in oils and watercolor for most of her life. However, she finds that the digital medium can best express that luminous sense of wonder which occurs at peak moments in our experiences with nature. Her original paintings are procured as Limited Edition pieces.

Exhibit Dates: January 24 – February 27

Public Reception: Thursday, February 16, from 5:00 – 6:30 pm

Booker High School 

Exhibition Titled: VPA Student Exhibition

Medium: Various

About: Booker High School, a comprehensive learning facility, is home to the Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) program, which offers rigorous, pre-professional training in the arts in five disciplines: Dance, Digital Film & Motion Design, Music, Theatre, and Visual Art. In collaboration with Sarasota Orchestra, Booker VPA visual art students will present a collection of two-dimensional artwork from various genres.

Exhibit Dates: February 28 – April 3 

Public Reception: Wednesday, March 22, from 5:00 – 6:30 pm

Bonnie Childs 

Exhibition Titled: Tropical Birds in Paradise

Medium: Watercolor

About: Bonnie Childs is a self-taught watercolor artist living and working in Venice, Florida. Her work is inspired by the natural environment that flourishes on the Gulf Coast. She paints vibrant Florida tropical birds – a representation of the paradise she feels grateful to call home. To complement each bird, she creates refurbished frames with a signature paper technique. This developed from customizing furniture pieces as a creative outlet and to bring a second-life to used objects, as sustainability is important to her.

Exhibit Dates: April 4 – May 12 

Public Reception: Thursday, April 20, from 5:00 – 6:30 pm

Honorable Mention:

Laura Baran, Mixed media / minerals on canvas

The Harmony Gallery is located in the atrium of the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center at 709 North Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL. The exhibitions are free and open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, as well as during concerts and other special events that take place in the Symphony Center’s Holley Hall. For more information about Harmony Gallery visit https://www.sarasotaorchestra.org/about/community/harmony-gallery.

About Sarasota Orchestra:

Since 1949, Sarasota Orchestra has inspired and entertained music-lovers across the region and visitors from around the world. As the oldest continuing orchestra in the state of Florida, each year the 76-member Orchestra performs more than 100 classical, pops, chamber music, and community outreach concerts. Sarasota Orchestra’s acclaimed music education program includes the Sarasota Youth Orchestras, established in 1959. Sarasota Orchestra is also the parent program of the world-renowned Sarasota Music Festival, founded in 1965. For further information, please visit www.SarasotaOrchestra.org.