In partnership with the Humanities Institute at the University of South Florida, the Plant City-based media company Periphery Media will launch AIRShow, their third live art exhibition later in the month.
AIRShow will feature 25 different pieces of art from 24 different local artists across a variety of mediums that includes oil and acrylic painting, multimedia, digital media, ceramics and fiber arts. The theme for the exhibition will focus on artists in recovery, whether from any illness, trauma or ordeal, mental or physical.
The exhibition is something that founders Clay Hollenkamp and Shelby Baerwalde have had in mind since starting Periphery Media in 2018 and was originally intended to come to life in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic put their plans on hold.
“It didn’t initially have anything to do with COVID at all,” Hollenkamp said. “And then it happened to turn out that it may be even more prescient now because there have been so many people who have dealt with recovery from COVID and recover from all of the peripheral things that have come from it. The mental health issues, the other societal ills and all of that kind of different stuff. It’s a show that just focuses on art on the theme of recovery and the process that surrounds it.”
AIRShow will debut at the QUAID Gallery, 5128 N. Florida Avenue, Tampa, on Friday, Aug. 20 with a free reception from 6 to 9 p.m. The event will then continue on Aug. 21, 22 and 28 from 12 to 5 p.m. and by appointment on Aug. 28. And although the exhibition will largely take place outdoors, it is requested that masks be worn by those in attendance.
Periphery Media began when two artists and Plant City natives in Baerwalde and Hollenkamp met in a coffee shop and shared a dream of giving locals a new opportunity to view art, as well as giving artists a new opportunity for their work to be seen.
Their first live exhibition was independently put together and hosted at The Bing Rooming House Museum in Plant City.
“We just decided that we wanted to put on an art exhibition here in Plant City, to try something different,” Hollenkamp said. “Because there isn’t a whole lot of art exhibitions and opportunities for people to view conceptual art. That was our goal for the first show, to put on a conceptual art show here in Plant City.”
Periphery Media then partnered with USF’s Humanities Institute to hold their second live exhibit, Shelter, at the Portico in Tampa, an event venue for not-for-profit groups, festivals, art exhibits, concerts, social interest groups and community service projects.
Since then, the duo has held two other online exhibitions.
“Both of us had a desire to create opportunities for artists in Tampa Bay,” Hollenkamp said. “Opportunities to exhibit their work and we also try to connect artists with new opportunities to connect with new audiences.”