Does art play an active role in identifying and revealing the realities of contemporary life? Conversely, how do present-day challenges in the world affect the choices that artists make in their studios? While these questions have no clear or easy answers, the exhibition Impact: Contemporary Artists at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, presented at Sarasota Art Museum, hopes to expand upon conventional ideas of art’s impact on our daily lives through the presentation of recent works made by 10 U.S.-based artists: Diana Al-Hadid, Sanford Biggers, Chitra Ganesh, Todd Gray, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Michelle Lopez, Ted Riederer, John Sims, Kukuli Velarde, and William Villalongo.
Working across a broad range of materials and techniques, including sculpture, painting, installation, video, photography, printmaking, ceramics, textiles, and social practice, each artist in Impact is represented by examples of their work that address established social, cultural, and philosophical boundaries of creative expression within the visual arts. For several participating artists, their work reflects upon core issues of history and identity, as in the case of Sanford Biggers’ loving appropriation of vintage African-American quilts, John Sims’ intense exploration of Confederate ideology, or Kukuli Velarde’s intricate fusion of Catholicism with Indigenous religion. Even artists working in an abstract mode, such as Diana Al-Hadid and Michele Lopez, still rely on architectural metaphors to make reference to the state of the world, while Ted Riederer’s participatory project, Never Records (2010-present), empowers members of the public to make a vinyl record they can take home with them.
A key factor these 10 artists share in common: over the past two decades, each has accepted an invitation to attend an artist residency at the historic beachfront campus of the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key—a unique experience that contributed to each of their creative processes in a variety of ways. An even more evident thread running through their works is a collective desire to explore and reveal the ways in which art can represent concepts and situations that reflect and engage their viewers’ (and their own) experience of the world around them. Organized by guest curator and former Hermitage Curatorial Council member Dan Cameron, Impact also represents the first collaboration between the Hermitage and Sarasota Art Museum.
Impact: Contemporary Artists at the Hermitage Artist Retreat is organized by Sarasota Art Museum in collaboration with the Hermitage Artist Retreat, and curated by Dan Cameron, independent curator.
This exhibition is made possible, in part, with generous support from:
Platinum Sponsor
Shari and John Hicks
Silver Sponsor
What does it mean to visualize the unknown? Award-winning glass artists Monica Guggisberg and Philip Baldwin examine the profound mysteries that underpin our understanding of the universe in their upcoming exhibition at Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design.
Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design (SAM) is pleased to participate in Blue Star Museums, a program that provides free admission to currently serving U.S. military personnel and their families during the summer. The 2026 program will begin on Armed Forces Day, Saturday, May 16, 2026, and end on Labor Day, Monday, September 7, 2026.
Five regional art museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg; The John and
Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota;
the Tampa Museum of Art; and the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, are pleased to
announce a call to artists for “Skyway 2027: A Contemporary Collaboration”, the fourth iteration of the exhibition
celebrating the diversity and talent of artistic practices in the Tampa Bay area and beyond.
Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design (SAM) is pleased to present “Beautiful Ideas: The Prints of Sol LeWitt,” on view from May 17 through October 25, 2026. This exhibition explores the extensive printmaking career of Sol LeWitt (1928–2007), a leader of the American Minimalism and Conceptual art movements who famously declared that “the idea becomes a machine that makes the art.”
Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design (SAM) announces its 2026-2027 season, featuring a lineup of seven exhibitions including works by some of the most beloved and influential photographers of the 20th-century, award-winning glass artists, a father and son artistic lineage, multiple Ringling College of Art and Design talents and more.
Fourth Tuesdays | 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Second Thursdays | 5:30 pm-8:00 pm
Monday, May 4, 2026 | 1 pm