Be inspired. Explore curated art and juried shows exhibited in four galleries.
Gallery hours: M-F 10 am-5 pm, Saturday 12 pm-5 pm
Admission is free; art is available for purchase.
ON VIEW APRIL 30 - MAY 13, 2024
North Sarasota County Schools Spring Art Show
Organized by school coordinators Angela Hartvigsen and Debra Markley, the Spring Art Show is one of the Art Center’s most cherished exhibition traditions! The show highlights over 1500 pieces of artwork from the county’s youngest artists in grades K-12, representing the best of their creations from the past school year. This unique, longtime partnership allows students to view their work in a professional setting and opens up their artistic vision to hundreds of families and community visitors.
High school students are celebrated at an evening award ceremony, with awards given from many local organizations topping over $20,000! This year, the elementary school students will have two evening receptions to recognize their creative accomplishments. The show includes all of North Sarasota County public and public charter schools. The Sarasota County Schools South County Spring Art Show is held annually at the Venice Art Center.
Artist Talks & Special Exhibition Events
Join us for Artist Talks to hear their inspiration, process, stories, and more.
The events start at 5:30 pm for mingling and drinks, and the talks begin promptly at 6 pm.
Watch previous Artists Talks on our YouTube channel!
Exhibition Schedule for our 2023-2024 Season
ON VIEW MAY 23 - JULY 27, 2024
Annual Juried Regional Show: Beyond Comfort
Beyond Comfort invites artists to express their perception of beauty and/or the grotesque in contemporary art and society. This show allows artists to define and explore aesthetics while joining the long debated concept of beauty and its function in art.
Juror: Virginia Shearer, Executive Director, Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design.
Submission Dates: Tuesday, February 20 - Sunday, April 28, 2024
Exhibition Dates: Thursday, May 23 - Saturday, July 27, 2024
Acceptance Notification: May 3
Drop Off Dates: May 15 & 16 Pick Up Dates: July 29 & 30
ON VIEW AUG 15 - SEPT 28, 2024
Opening Night Reception: August 15, 6 pm
Precious Darling | Boys & Girls Club of Manatee County | Tanner Simon | Juried Show: Flora & Fauna
Precious Darling
Precious Darling will present an exhibition that explores the complexity of femininities and its relation to objectification through photography and sculpture. Born and raised in Miami, FL, Precious is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans photography, sculpture, and installation. In 2023, they earned a BA in Arts and Humanities from New College of Florida.
Precious has showcased their artwork in several exhibitions, including the Visions In Black annual juried exhibition in 2022 at Art Center Sarasota and in the 2023 exhibition, which was a collaboration that featured artists of color in three galleries across Sarasota and Manatee Counties.
Boys & Girls Club of Manatee County
Art Center Sarasota and Boys & Girls Clubs of Manatee County (BGCMC) have teamed up to present a special exhibition of artwork. Showcasing a variety of styles, media,and expression, these unique pieces will reflect the artistic voices of our youngest generation.
BGCMC is grounded in the belief that learning is actively built, experiential, evolving, collaborative, problem solving, and reflective. Arts integration provides multiple ways for students to make sense of what they learn and make their learning visible. It challenges students to take the information and facts they have learned and do something with them to build deeper understanding.
Arts education is crucial to a child’s development, shaping their creativity, cultural awareness, fine motor skills, spatial reasoning, problem solving, decision making, perseverance, and collaboration.
Funding is provided in part by the Julie Ross Legacy Project. Additional sponsorship comes from Artwork Installation.
Tanner Simon
Tanner Simon will present an installation of his large-scale paintings that explore the intersection of humor, seriousness, and the absurd. This installation invites viewers to engage with the dynamic relationships and visual conversations that emerge between imagery and paintings in space.
Tanner is a multidisciplinary artist from Honesdale, PA. He holds a BA in US History and Studio Art from Elizabethtown College, with a minor in Biological Anthropology. He is currently completing his MFA at the University of South Florida. Tanner's work has been exhibited across the East Coast, including notable solo exhibitions in Tampa at 501 Gallery, Secret Mystery Artist No.1 at the DOCATPA, and at Carolyn Wilson Gallery. He has participated in group exhibitions at Heiress Gallery in St. Petersburg, Karst Grounds at Tempus Projects in Tampa, and is an award winner of the “Shit in the Dirt Film Festival” in Portland, ME. Tanner's work is published in the Artist Registry of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York, NY.
Art by Susan McLean-Keeney
Juried Show: Flora & Fauna
This show invites artists to celebrate characters of the natural world, real and imagined, living and extinct, peaceful and poisonous. Artists of all media are encouraged to submit!
The juror for this exhibition is Dr. David Berry, Vice President for Visitor Engagement and Chief Museum Curator at Selby Gardens.
Submission Dates: April 30 – July 14, 2024, 11:59 pm
Acceptance Notification: July 19 | Award Notification: Aug 14
Drop Off Dates: July 29 & 30
Pick Up Dates: Sept 30 & Oct 1
Juror Critique: TBD
Juried Exhibitions
Our juried exhibitions showcase local and regional artists in our Atrium Gallery, with all artwork available for purchase. Each show has a different theme and all media are welcome.
Jurors are experts in their fields and include curators, historians, educators, artists, and art critics. Jurors recognize extraordinary talent with the selection of awards from 1st place to honorable mention. Gallery visitors also select a People’s Choice award winner.
Call to Artists
Artists of all levels of expertise are encouraged to submit work and be a part of the community! All submissions are online and are open to all artists and mediums unless otherwise mentioned. Please call 941-365-2032 if you need assistance submitting work.
Annual Juried Regional Show, Beyond Comfort
Beyond Comfort invites artists to express their perception of beauty and/or the grotesque in contemporary art and society. This show allows artists to define and explore aesthetics while joining the long debated concept of beauty and its function in art.
Juror: Virginia Shearer, Executive Director, Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design.
Submission Dates: Tuesday, February 20 - Sunday, April 28, 2024
Exhibition Dates: Thursday, May 23 - Saturday, July 27, 2024
Acceptance Notification: May 3
Drop Off Dates: May 15 & 16 Pick Up Dates: July 29 & 30
Flora & Fauna
This show invites artists to celebrate characters of the natural world, real and imagined, living and extinct, peaceful and poisonous. Nature is mankind’s greatest muse when creating art, and there is a long and rich history of artists representing plants and animals in their artwork, often with layered and hidden meanings. Artists of all media are encouraged to submit!
Juror: Dr. David Berry, Vice President for Visitor Engagement and Chief Museum Curator at Selby Gardens.
Exhibition Dates: Thursday, August 15 - Saturday, September 28, 2024
Submission Dates: Tuesday, April 30 - Sunday, July 14, 2024
Notification of Acceptance: Friday, July 19 by 5 pm
Drop Off Dates: Tuesday, July 30 - Wednesday, July 31, 10 am-5 pm
Pick Up Dates: Monday, September 30 - Tuesday, October 1, 10 am-5 pm
Juror Leslie Butterfield
Euphoria!
Euphoria is defined as an intense feeling of well-being or elation that may be sparked by exercise, music, art or even mania. Inherently, euphoria is often associated with other fierce emotions in an excited state. This exhibition invites artists to display their excited selves and their diverse reactions to the theme of euphoria.
Juror: Leslie Butterfield, Artist & Designer
Submission Dates: Tuesday, July 16 - Sunday, September 15, 2024
Jurying: Monday, September 16 - Thursday, September 19: Due Friday, Sept. 20, 10 am.
Award Notification: no later than Wednesday, October 9 at 5 pm.
Exhibition Dates: Thursday, October 10 - Saturday, November 16, 2024
Opening Reception: Thursday, 6-8 pm, October 10, 2024
Juror Leslie Butterfield holds several art-related degrees including one specialized in fiber arts from Aarhus Art Academy in Denmark and a masters and PhD in Design and Art History from the University of Minnesota. During her career, she made a living as an artist, founded a software company, worked for many years in technology and retired in 2015 to Sarasota to spend more time creating art. Today, Leslie is a practicing artist, an active member of many arts organizations and she completed a six-year term on the Public Art Committee for the City of Sarasota and three years on the Tourist Development Arts Grants panel for Sarasota County. She is a co-founder of Art in Common Places, a public-art-oriented program in Sarasota.
Solo Exhibition Submissions
Art Center Sarasota is now accepting proposals for solo exhibitions.
Submitting a proposal does not guarantee a solo exhibition. Only artists who are under consideration for a solo exhibition will be contacted.
Click here to learn more or to submit your solo exhibition proposal prospectus.