Is it possible to create beauty out of the remnants of destruction?
Yes, says artist Judy Pfaff.
You can decide for yourself at Pfaff's exhibition, "Picking Up the Pieces," which runs through March 24 at Sarasota Art Museum.
The show has a schizophrenic feel. One half is an exploration of the aftermath of Hurricane Ian's September 2022 landfall. Pfaff saw Ian's impact firsthand when she visited Fort Myers and Sanibel Island after the storm.
The other half of the exhibition is a dizzying riot of color. Walking through the artworks cobbled together from salvaged odds and ends feels like going to a garage sale after taking LSD. (That observation is based on portrayals in books and film, not personal experience.)
It's Pfaff's own Magical Mystery Tour, to riff on The Beatles, bringing together pieces both old and new. It's a retrospective of sorts for Pfaff, whose career of more than five decades has included over 100 solo exhibitions. It has also produced artwork that resides in the permanent collections of MOMA, Whitney Museum of Art, Tate Gallery, Brooklyn Museum of Art and Detroit Institute of Arts.
