Where the Color Comes From: A Florida Summer Story

Gallery500 in the sunny One-Daytona shopping complex.

Take a slow walk through any Florida art gallery and you'll notice something the rest of the country doesn't quite have. The blues run hotter. The greens push toward emerald and lime. Pinks, oranges, and corals show up where you'd expect a quieter palette somewhere else. There's a reason for that, and it isn't just a stylistic choice. Florida's color is the product of the place itself, layered over generations of artists who lived and worked here.

The starting point is the light. Sitting at a low latitude with humidity in the air and water on three sides, Florida catches the sun differently than the rest of the continental US. That light bounces off the ocean, the Intracoastal, the lakes and rivers, and the white sand of the coast, scattering through the moisture in the air and softening as it lands. Colors don't just sit on a surface here. They glow.

Payne's Prairie, photograph on paper by Tash Fenga. 

That same climate produces the second piece of the story: the foliage. Subtropical Florida is a riot of color most of the country never sees up close. Bougainvillea climbing a wall in fuchsia and crimson. Bird of paradise, hibiscus, and the orange flame of royal poinciana in early summer. Flamingos and spoonbills against the green of a mangrove. Artists working in Florida have always had a more vivid library of source material to draw from, and it shows up on the canvas whether the subject is explicitly tropical or not.

Let's Fla-mingle, limited edition on paper by Guy Harvey. 

Then there's the culture. Florida has long been the place people come to slow down, whether on vacation, in retirement, or for a long weekend at the beach. The visual language of that life is bright by design. Lilly Pulitzer (our OneDaytona neighbor via the Pink Narcissus Boutique) built an entire empire on it. Beach cottages, art deco facades in Miami, the candy-colored umbrellas lining the shore: this is a state that dresses for joy, and its artists have followed suit. There's a real lineage to it as well, from the Florida Highwaymen painting roadside in the mid-twentieth century to the plein air traditions that still draw painters outdoors today.

Getting a Makeover, oil on board by Ray Brilli. 

Our June exhibition, Colors of Summer, is built around exactly this idea. The featured works pull from the same well that has fed Florida artists for generations: light, landscape, leisure, and a refusal to be quiet. Pieces by Beau Wild, Hessam Abrishami, and other gallery artists bring that energy into the gallery in their own distinct voices, each interpreting the season through a personal palette.

If you're in the Daytona Beach area this Summer, we'd love to have you stop in. Colors of Summer is on view throughout the month, Tuesday through Saturday 11 to 8, Sunday 12 to 6, and Monday by appointment.