Art Uptown Gallery and the Bird Key Yacht Club continue their ongoing collaboration with the opening of a new solo exhibit entitled Luminescence at the club tomorrow evening. Featuring 18 paintings from Art Uptown member artist Cecile Moran, the exhibit follows shows from other Art Uptown creators such as Kasia Bruniany, Jill Krasner and Elizabeth Trostli. With an opening reception with Moran, live music and champagne on July 6 at 6pm at the Bird Key Yacht Club, the exhibit runs through the month.

With a bold color palette rich in deep reds and purples, Moran’s landscapes present a world virtually on fire, with gold-leaf trees alone on fields of vermilion. Often large-scale (one diptych stands nearly three feet tall and eight feet wide), some reach a near-mythical aesthetic—stark and fantastical in their drama—others bring the viewer closer to home, allowing the greens and blues of lush Florida foliage to intrude upon the setting sun’s scarlet transformation for a cooling balance.

As the title Luminescence would suggest, Moran’s work focuses largely on capturing the brilliance of the Florida sunshine, particularly at sunrise or sunset, though not always literally. For this reason, Moran makes a habit of reaching beyond the paintbrush and incorporating gold and copper leaf into her work, “especially to show the subtle nuances of color and light as it glows through the trees,” she says. Growing up, she watched her father work with gold leaf as a calligrapher and sign-maker, and those traditional techniques she still practices today. Far superior to gold paint, in which Moran bemoans a certain flatness, gold leaf, she says, “glows.” In her painting of the Banyan trees on the Ringling Museum campus, the artist uses both gold leaf and gold paint, allowing viewers to see the difference for themselves.

Through gold leaf, Moran hopes to encapsulate the near-endless captivating quality that the sunset or sunrise holds—that experience that never truly gets old. It’s a feeling she knows, and expects others can relate to as well. Looking at the Florida sun bathing the world in red and gold as it slips beneath the horizon, “it never loses its intriguing intensity,” says Moran. 

Pictured: "Sentinel" by Cecile Moran. Image courtesy of Cecile Moran.

It wouldn’t be State Street Eating House without an ever-changing and rotating array of tasty cocktails to sip and sample, and July’s arrivals are no exception. Staples and favorites like daiquiris and the famous State Street Bramble make an appearance, of course, but the return of the Marie Rosé demands special attention. Tanqueray Malacca gin comprises the lion’s share of the cocktail, meeting fresh lemon juice and crème de pamplemousse rose—a grapefruit-flavored liqueur with strong citrus and flowery notes—in the mixer before being strained into the glass, where a mint garnish and helping of Gruet sparkling rosé finish the drink with a pop of color and a bouquet of bubbles. Light and refreshing, Marie arrived just in time for peak summer. 

Image courtesy of State Street Eating House.

State Street Eating House, 1533 State St., Sarasota, 941-951-1533.

The Town of Longboat Key in collaboration with Sarasota County has announced the opening of the 3.54-acre Bayfront Park addition. This Gulf-to-Bay parcel was acquired in 2007 as part of the Neighborhood Parklands Acquisition Program (NPP) at a cost of approximately $8 million. In 2016, Sarasota County entered into a project agreement for up to $2 million with the Town of Longboat Key to make construction improvements to the Bayfront Park addition, utilizing a combination of funding sources including NPP, Tourist Development Tax and Surtax III funds. Completed improvements include a playground, restroom, picnic shelters, docks, sidewalks, parking, rain garden, stormwater treatment facility, portions of a pedestrian bridge and landscaping. Additional proposed improvements include a crosswalk with sidewalks to the Gulf-side parcel, where a dune walkover and observation platform will be constructed. The construction was managed by the Town of Longboat Key. The Bayfront Park Recreation Center is a public recreation facility operated by the Town of Longboat Key, and provides affordable recreation for the entire community. This includes leisure and recreational sports, organized sports leagues and activities, educational programs, cultural classes and seminars, social functions, and special events for all ages and interests. Bayfront Park is located at 4052 Gulf of Mexico Drive, Town of Longboat Key.  

Bayfront Park

The building housing Premier Surgery Center of Sarasota, a centrally located medical facility between Sarasota Memorial Hospital and Doctors Hospital, has sold. SVN Commercial Advisory Group senior advisors Bob Morris and Mike Migone collaborated on the $4.43 million sale of the 20,475-square-foot building at 983 South Beneva Rd. Morris represented the buyer, Lido Acquisitions LLC, and Migone the seller, 983 S. Beneva LLC. The transaction closed last week. The majority tenant partner is National Surgery Center Holdings, a subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare Corp., a diversified healthcare services company with more than 130,000 employees. The practice itself was not sold. 

SVN Commercial Advisory Group