| Sim gallery: funky to exquisite |
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| Steve and Mollie Turner run around, trying to take care of lastminute details, the yetunconnected phones just another glitch to work through. The couple's in the process of moving their artistic architectural illustration firm, Bradford & Co. Design, to Cape Harbour, an exclusive Cape Coral community that combines a marina with condos and upscale shops. And they're also about to open their new venture there too, the Sim Gallery of Fine Arts. Though the gallery isn't officially open yet, eager buyers have already snatched up some pieces. "We told them they could buy, but the art had to stay in the gallery for now," Steven Turner says. After all, they didn't want bare walls when the gallery celebrates its grand opening on Saturday and Sunday, May 19 and 20. (The public grand opening will be preceded by an invitation only, private reception Friday evening. The Turners expect 500 people to attend.) Sim Gallery - the name a mash-up of their two sons' names, Sam and Tim - represents over a dozen local artists. "It's pretty much something for everybody, from funky to exquisite," Turner says. "It's artwork for everyone's taste: realism, surrealism, contemporary, abstract. "Our tagline is: 'You'll know it when you see it.' That's how Mollie and I buy artwork. We'll walk around, not see anything we like, and then we see something and say, 'That's neat.'" "There's not a piece here that I wouldn't take home and hang in our own home," Mollie Turner says. Much of the artwork in the soon-toopen gallery reflects a decidedly South Floridian landscape: palm trees, mangroves, boats, fish, and wildlife. There are even glass lamps that look like jellyfish and gyotaku - the Japanese art of fish printing by rubbing on rice paper. The majority of art in the new gallery are paintings, though one artist works in mixed media (Uri Berger), another in glass (Chad Moriarty) and one in jewelry (Mark Loren). The Turners didn't have to look far for artists. Mollie's sister is represented, as well as Steven's father, a member of the Southern Watercolor Society and the National Watercolor Society. Two artists who work with the Turners at their design firm are also represented. And Steven Turner, an artist in his own right, is also selling his paintings at the gallery. "I have about seven different styles of painting," he says. And looking at the wide variety of styles, it's difficult to believe the same man has created them. One painting, "Spirit Woods," shows a forest scene of what appears to be mangroves, painted in browns and rust colors. That piece is already sold. Another painting shows two sets of eyes peeking from a jungle filled with fluorescent colors. Yet another, of a swordfish leaping in the water, is so detailed, it looks as if it could be an illustration in a fishing magazine.
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"Left Break," a two-paneled painting by the front door, is one of Turner's many surfing scenes. He's devoted approximately 7/8ths of the painting to a tsunami-like wave upon which four figures surf. Immediately in the foreground is a sliver of land with a handful of palm trees and a little shack. Surfing is dear to Turner's heart, as he toured as a professional surfer for "three or four years." But it's no wonder Turner's life now revolves around art; he grew up surrounded by it. His father, William Turner, studied at Sarasota's Ringling School of Art, then became the director of the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale. Turner began his artistic career by airbrushing surfboards, skateboards, Tshirts and even corporate jets. Later, he worked in his father's company, The Graphics Group. The gallery's 1250 square feet contains a viewing room: a room where perspective buyers can spend time looking at a piece of art in privacy when they're considering purchasing. Turner also had two free-standing walls installed in the gallery, to make more room for art. In one corner, perhaps in an attempt to add a New York flavor, a custommade brushed aluminum spiral staircase connects the gallery to their design company on the second floor. Painted on the wall behind it: two stories' worth of chunky, colorful graffiti. Going from the raw to the sublime, a display case sits in the opposite corner, filled with Mark Loren's unique jewelry. He incorporates antique and ancient artifacts, using for example, ancient silver Greek coins for one set of earrings and an ancient ivory harpoon tip for a necklace. Turner promises that all the work in the gallery is original and one-of-a-kind. Prices at the gallery run from $400 to $10,000. Turner says he's been receiving "tons of calls" from people who want to sell their work in the gallery. "But we're trying to be discriminating," he says. "We'd rather promote local arts, and pick the work we really like. We want a variety. We don't want everything the same." "We're really excited," says Mollie Turner, who's also the gallery's director. "We think it's going to be an asset to the community and to the artists that are coming. All the artists are just so promising. The artists are all passionate about what they do. |