Olivia Mansion

Look closely and discover a painting with hand stitching, beading, sequins, and other mixed media.🖌️🧵

It’s often difficult to convey the energy, hard work, and dedication that our Fairgrounds St. Pete team put into creating the work you get to now enjoy!

Here is a look at “Hibiscus”, created by artist Lynn Doyal. Lynn’s beautiful mixed media painting Hibiscus is on view in the Mermaid Star Motel Lobby. Featuring collaged images, acrylic paint and hand stitching in beading, the painting is a lovely depiction of Florida’s tropical flora.

Lynn is a native Floridian raised in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. Hand stitching and beading, oil and acrylic paint, paper, sequins and other materials all created on canvas bring her compositions to life.

Per Lynn, “the challenge of making work that is fun, engaging and provides that “breath” in the course of a person’s day means a great deal to me. The public arena allows me to introduce SCALE as an essential and integral part of the work I create.”

To see Lynn’s work at Fairgrounds St. Pete, – get your ticket today, and join our Insiders Club for the latest Fairgrounds St. Pete news.

It’s often difficult to convey the energy, hard work, and dedication that our Fairgrounds St. Pete team put into creating the work you get to now enjoy!

Here is a look at the “Sunnymooners and Flamingo Passion Face Spinners”, created by artist Laura Spencer aka “Miss Crit”. As with all of the artwork at Fairgrounds st. Pete the “Sunnymooners and Flamingo Passion Face Spinners”, have a story.

For Fairgrounds St. Pete, Laura created a mini-series called Florida Face Spinners. These dimensional, interactive illustrations capture weird and wild aspects of Florida’s tropical landscape. Tucked neatly amongst the kipple and kitsch of the Mermaid Dressing Room, these psychedelic spinners engage the viewer in wacky, tacky and wonderful Florida vibes. Simply spin the edge of each piece to turn the heads right side up and upside down. Made from expanded PVC, these pieces are durable and easily sterilized. Much like Fairgrounds St. Pete, there is no one right way to experience the Florida Face Spinners.

A little bit spooky and a little bit psychedelic, Miss Crit designs with her third-eye wide open. With a background in Fine Art and Illustration, she brings together traditional techniques and innovative digital technology. Throughout it all, her work is about storytelling. Whether illustrating graphics for a museum or designing immersive sculptures for music festivals, Miss Crit communicates through a visual narrative. Good design and illustration should transform the written word and transcend cultural barriers. Through research, Miss Crit homogenizes symbols and archetypes to create for a universally shared experience. As an illustrator, it’s important to be a chameleon: able to wear many hats and emulate a variety of styles. However, no matter the style or genre, Miss Crit always executes her concepts with impeccable craftsmanship and keen attention to detail. In recent years, Miss Crit has turned her attention towards creating more than just 2D work. She has collaborated with sculptors and fabricators and harmonized across disciplines to work with actors and performance artists.

Throughout it all, visual storytelling prevails. Miss Crit states, “I want my audience to feel completely immersed in the story; entranced, transformed. Through their experiences, they become the narrators of their own stories.”

To see Laura’s work at Fairgrounds St. Pete, – get your ticket today, and join our Insiders Club for the latest Fairgrounds St. Pete news.

It’s often difficult to convey the energy, hard work, and dedication that our Fairgrounds St. Pete team put into creating the work you get to now enjoy!

As with all of the artwork at Fairgrounds st. Pete “The Original Floridian”, has a story.

For Fairgrounds St. Pete, Samantha created two sculptures of alligator feet. Created using life-casting techniques, these sculptures were fabricated from an original mold taken in 2018 of “Bog Guy” an adult male American Alligator at the Naples Florida Zoo who was approximately 10-foot and 500 pounds.

To make this Fairgrounds St. Pete edition, the finish of the casts was custom-made. The sculptures are inspired by the wild color palette of Fairgrounds St. Pete’s Everglades Arena. The alligator’s eccentrically beautiful characteristics become more evident with the magenta, green, and blue shifts that occur on the sculptures. When viewers move around the sculptures, they see the colors on the glossy surface change with their movements.

Samantha is an interdisciplinary, conceptual artist working across traditional and new media processes in sculpture. Her installations, sculptures and prints have been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States as well as Canada, Germany, Andorra and France. Burns has received multiple residencies to support and develop her creative works such as Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), Elsewhere Museum (Greensboro, NC) and the Roundtable residency (Toronto, Canada). In addition to her studio practice, Samantha collaborates with organizations to use art as a medium to educate the public. In 2019, Samantha partnered with the Naples Zoo and Giant Armadillo Conservation Project. Brought to Brazil, she worked in the field along with the Giant Armadillo Conservation team to humanely cast giant armadillos. Together they cast this endangered species’ unique claws, backs and head armor, which are now being used as materials to educate and promote their conservation efforts.

To see Samantha’s work at Fairgrounds St. Pete, – get your ticket today, and join our Insiders Club for the latest Fairgrounds St. Pete news.

It’s often difficult to convey the energy, hard work, and dedication that our Fairgrounds St. Pete team put into creating the work you get to now enjoy!

Here is a look at the wall in the Mermaid Star Motel Lobby, a painting by artist Jane Bunker, and wallpapering by our internal art and tech team.

On view in the Mermaid Star Motel Lobby, “Carnival” is a vibrant celebration of light, rhythm and color inspired by the beauty of lilies. It expresses the joy its artist, Jane Bunker, experiences from the perfection in nature, along with the tremendous happiness she feels, knowing that her art is making a difference in someone’s life.

Three years ago, she suggested to Terri Lipsey Scott, the director of the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum, that they start a college scholarship fund for African American youth, supported by 100% of the proceeds from the sales of her paintings. For Jane, this project is like a dream come true; she gets to combine her passion for painting with her love of helping people. In each of the last two years the scholarship program has raised over $40,000 and they have been blessed with an additional donation of $50,000 per year for the next ten years from the Milkey Family Foundation.

In an interview with the Gabber, Jane said “ It’s the highlight of my life, working with these young people.”

To see Jane Bunker’s work at Fairgrounds St. Pete, – get your ticket today, and join our Insiders Club for the latest Fairgrounds St. Pete news.

To support the Bunker Scholarship Auction, please visit https://bunkerscholarshipauction.com/ 

Discover an immersive environment that combines romance and mystery 💕🔎🕵️

It’s often difficult to convey the energy, hard work, and dedication that our Fairgrounds St. Pete team put into creating the work you get to now enjoy!

Here is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the “Sunnymooners Suite”, created by our internal art and tech team.

The immersive installation also includes artwork by inaugural Fairgrounds St. Pete artists such as Savannah Magnolia and Shay Willard.

As you walk into the all-pink motel room, you’ll discover the room just as the “Sunnymooners” left it before they went missing. Did you see the search wall they left behind?

To see the “Sunnymooners Suite” – get your ticket today, and join our Insiders Club for the latest Fairgrounds St. Pete news.