Two Exhibitions of Hermitage Artists Will Premiere At Sarasota Art Museum

The Hermitage Artist Retreat has announced two exhibitions opening at the Sarasota Art Museum in the spring of 2024, featuring a collective twelve Hermitage Fellows, including two past winners of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize. Impact: Contemporary Artists at the Hermitage Artist Retreat (March 10 to July 7, 2024) is curated by former Hermitage National Curatorial Council member Dan Cameron and features the work of ten award-winning Hermitage visual artists.

The Truth of the Night Sky (April 21 to September 29, 2024) is the result of a collaboration that sparked on Manasota Key between two celebrated Hermitage Fellows – visual artist Anne Patterson and composer Patrick Harlin. These two Hermitage artist exhibitions will be running concurrently at SAM from April 21 through July 7, 2024.

Impact: Contemporary Artists at the Hermitage Artist Retreat opens on March 10, 2024, and will be on display to the public through July 7, 2024. This exhibition will feature work from ten nationally and internationally renowned Hermitage alumni artists: Diana Al-Hadid, Sanford Biggers (2010 Hermitage Greenfield Prize winner), Chitra Ganesh, Todd Gray, Trenton Doyle Hancock (2013 Hermitage Greenfield Prize winner), Michelle Lopez, Ted Riederer, the late John Sims, Kukuli Velarde, and William Villalongo. A key factor these ten artists have in common is that over the past two decades, each has been a Fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key — a unique experience that contributed to each of their creative processes in a variety of ways. Overseen by guest curator and former Hermitage Curatorial Council member Dan Cameron, Impact represents the first major exhibition in collaboration between the Hermitage and Sarasota Art Museum. The exhibit will feature work across a range of media, including sculpture, painting, installation, video, photography, printmaking, ceramics, textiles, and social practice. Sanford Biggers, a distinguished Hermitage alumnus and internationally renowned artist, is also now a member of the Hermitage's National Curatorial Council and was a featured guest speaker at the 2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize Dinner.

The Truth of the Night Sky, a Hermitage collaboration, is the second exhibition of Hermitage alumni premiering at Sarasota Art Museum this spring – opening on April 21, 2024 and remaining on display through September 29, 2024. After meeting while in residence at the Hermitage Artist Retreat ten years ago and building on their friendship and collaboration, multidisciplinary visual artist Anne Patterson and composer / soundscape artist Patrick Harlin have joined forces to develop this one-of-a-kind immersive experience. Patterson, who is familiar to Sarasota audiences from previous exhibitions at The Ringling Museum and whose “Divine Pathways” is currently represented in New York at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, is widely celebrated for her grand environments that immerse the viewer and surround the senses. A distinguished Hermitage alumna with an impressive background in immersive exhibitions and theatrical design, Anne Patterson has frequently collaborated with musicians, including fellow Hermitage alum Patrick Harlin, to design mesmerizing environments. For this collaborative project, Patterson and Harlin are expanding upon Harlin's original composition Earthrise (2022), an orchestral piece inspired by the eponymous photograph (1968) taken by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders on humanity's first-ever trip around the moon. The original composition by Patrick Harlin, who was also the very first recipient of the Hermitage Prize in Composition at the Aspen Music Festival, will play as visitors pass through the galleries. The exhibition will feature several works by Patterson, as well as a suspended tree and her signature satin ribbon installation work. With each step, visitors will travel imaginatively through space and time. Of their time at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Patterson and Harlin are fond of saying that their experience was invaluable to their craft and their collaboration, allowing them to achieve new heights, find a unique environmental inspiration, and explore new possibilities in their work.