Staff members at Selby Botanical Gardens admit they may have gotten carried away with inspiration while designing their latest art-meets-nature exhibition “Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop!”
“We just went a little crazy,” said Mike McLaughlin, the director of horticulture, who worked with a team of staff members to transform the conservatory and grounds into an assortment of whimsical displays that reflect Lichtenstein’s Pop art interpretations of classic works by French Impressionist painter Claude Monet of his gardens in Giverny, France, and his famed haystacks.
“There was a lot to work from,” McLaughlin said of the latest entry in the Jean and Alfred Goldstein Exhibition Series, which opens today and continues through June 27 at Selby’s downtown Sarasota campus. The series has previously featured botanical-related art work by Marc Chagall, Paul Gauguin, Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali.
Playwright Aleshea Harris Awarded 2021 Hermitage Greenfield Prize
The Hermitage Artist Retreat (Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO), in collaboration with the Greenfield Foundation, has selected OBIE-winning playwright Aleshea Harris as the winner of the 2021 Hermitage Greenfield Prize, given this year in the artistic discipline of theater. Harris will receive a six-week residency at the Hermitage and a $30,000 commission for a new work, which will have its first public presentation in Sarasota in 2023 in collaboration with the Hermitage’s presenting partner, Asolo Repertory Theatre (Michael Donald Edwards, Producing Artistic Director).
The Hermitage’s Artistic Director Andy Sandberg notes that Harris was selected by a distinguished jury that included jury chair Mandy Greenfield1, a member of the Hermitage Curatorial Council and the Artistic Director of Williamstown Theater Festival (Massachussetts); Nataki Garrett, the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival