Florida Noir | UCF Art Gallery

PUBLIC RECEPTION: Thursday, January 19, 5-7 p.m.

“There is something magical about the woodlands, swamps and back roads of Florida; twisting trees over wood bridges, wild animals and large birds (in strange places), all with a haunted almost mystical quality.”

– Richard Auger

Noir, which is the word for black in French, conjures familiar references in pop culture. For example Noir films were stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly such that emphasized cynical attitudes and motivations. (Consider filmmakers’ Alfred Hitchcock Rear Window, Quentin Tarantino Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, David Lynch Blue Velvet, Bryan Singer The Usual Suspects). Or consider the many crime novels that Florida is notorious for like the work of Elmore Leonard and John D. McDonald.

The many topics, subjects and points of view exhibited in Florida Noir: A Sunny Place with Shady Circumstances range from nostalgic memories, to juxtapositions of arcane imagery, to a wide variety of Florida landscapes.

The painters and photographers in Florida Noir: A Sunny Place with Shady Circumstances focus on point of view of the audience, qualities of light and shadow, contrasting shapes and forms, and the development of interior and exterior space to construct their subject matter. Like Film Noir, several artists focused on black and white painting, while some used symbolic color to express a mood by emphasizing light and shadow. Some artists created diptychs – two paintings of the same size that are interdependent. Several artists in this show created a series of multiple Florida Noir paintings, which offers viewers opportunities to experience a fuller range of a single artist’s point of view.