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MAIN GALLERY“Hiss! BOOM! Squat!: Philomena Marano and Deon Blackwell”
Exhibition Dates: July 3 – August 2, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday July 3, 5-9pm
Artist talks: Sunday July 26, 3pm
GABINETTO GALLERY
“Neighborhood Stories: Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin”
Exhibition Dates: July 3 – August 2, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday July 3, 5-9pm
St. Petersburg, FL – The Werk Gallery is ready to expand its vision again with two outstanding exhibitions featuring artists from Tampa, Sarasota/NYC, and Los Angeles whose work takes a playful, sometimes absurd, approach to the exploration of memory, nostalgia and change.
“Hiss! BOOM! Squat!” takes its cue from the artists’ use of words in their work to illuminate meaning and point to the way in which a single word can illicit an entire narrative through memory. Philomena Marano (Sarasota/NYC) learned the papier collé technique that defines her work while serving as Robert Indiana’s assistant. Her personal vision then turned to the wonder and surprises she found in everyday life, particularly at Coney Island’s famed amusement park. After moving to Sarasota, she turned her focus to circus life and to the majesty of tropical reef ecosystems. Every shape and color in her work is a separate piece of paper painstakingly cut by hand and glued to a substrate. Deon Blackwell (Tampa) takes forms from traditional ceramics like a container or an arch and manipulates them to reflect on memories from earlier in life. Sometimes comical, sometimes tragic, each form is meant to give the viewer a strange sense of connection in the same way an inside joke connects on the surface with a person that doesn’t quite get it. He uses text, unusual materials, unorthodox ceramic process, or anything else that helps to convey the unease of dealing with awkwardness and coming to terms with the past. Many of the works to be presented at Werk Gallery have never been exhibited publicly.
In our “Gabinetto Gallery”, The Werk is proud to debut “Neighborhood Stories”, the newest body of work by Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin (Los Angeles). This series of abstract collages is made using photographs to construct compositions centered on memory, loss, struggle and community. Kwasi’s lens-based work of the past 20 years has revolved around documenting the urban landscape and neighborhoods of Los Angeles, propelled by an innate drive to authentically portray the ways the city has been transformed over the past few decades. Acting as both the collage artist and the photographer facilitated a deeper, tactile connection to his archive, enabling the exploration of specific personal and social themes revolving around the physical structure of the spaces he photographs. The deconstructed photographs explore the complex network of people, lost structures, and communities lost to gentrification, displacement, and the passage of time.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Philomena Marano is a daughter of Brooklyn. She holds a BFA from Pratt Institute, is an intimate of the visual poetry of Coney Island, created the winning poster for the first Spirit of Brooklyn poster competition, and is a master of papier collé, the elegant cut paper technique she learned as a studio assistant to preeminent artist Robert Indiana. Marano’s acclaimed series, “American- Dream-Land,” a decades-spanning project of papier collé originals and limited-edition prints, penetrates the soul of Coney Island to reveal its twin promises of candy-colored paradise and gritty raw excitement. In addition to her studio work, she is the co-founder of the Coney Island Historical Society and co-author of “Hysterical Coney Island” a story of “how a handful of artists sparked a revival of America’s historical amusement beach during the blighted 1980’s.” Marano moved to Sarasota in 2017.
Deon Blackwell was born in Pensacola, Florida and studied music and art at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. He received his MFA in studio art from the University of South Florida in 2007. His studio practice includes a wide variety of ceramic processes including: Raku, soda fire, salt fire, underglaze techniques and various decal and casting methods. He lectures about his processes and exhibitions at universities and for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. His work has been exhibited across the country in solo exhibitions and private collections. Since receiving his MFA, Deon has taught ceramics for the University of South Florida and foundation courses for the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver. He is currently the Adult Education Director for the Dunedin Fine Art Center.
Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles at 2 years old with his family by train, arriving at Union Station in 1980. Growing up in the Hollywood, Mid-City, and Koreatown areas of the city during the nineties sparked an interest in the visual arts at a young age. The death of his father at the age of 19 resulted in him receiving his first real camera, which was a turning point for his trajectory as a creative. Documenting neighborhoods in Los Angeles is the core of his photographic practice. In 2017 Kwasi was included on Time Magazine’s list of 12 African American Photographers to Follow, was the lead photographer for the Netflix animation series “City of Ghosts”, and is one of 2 inaugural 2022 Creators in Residence for the Los Angeles Public Library. The mission is to document the evolving urban landscape of Los Angeles and create a lasting photographic archive of digital and physical artifacts that authentically record life in the city from ground level.
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Event Venue
2210 1st Ave S, Saint Petersburg, FL, 2210 1st Ave S, St Petersburg, FL 33712-1206, United States, St. Petersburg
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