Nowak’s JAG Gallery Mounts an Uplifting Small Works Show

By Eric Goeres

America’s got a size issue. Maybe the roots go back to super-sized McMeals, or Texas Toast, or the ever-increasing need to sell more and more, ever larger F-150s. (And 250’s and 350’s!). We like things big, and bigger has seemingly never been better.

On the other hand …

The latest exhibition mounted at JAG Gallery focuses on limitations rather than largeness. Welcome to the 2021 Small Works Exhibit, an annual homage to great ideas that run small — now in its 11th year.

JAG Gallery is known for repping a number of Key West notables, including sculptor John Martini, painters B. Lucy Stevens, Susan Sugar, AD Tinkham, Lincoln Perry, and Rick Worth, and the portraiture paintings of the gallery’s owner and artistic director, Letty Nowak. JAG also enjoys a multi-decade presence as the successor to the always-impressive Lucky Street Gallery.

The JAG Gallery 2021 Small Works Exhibit brings together 180 works of art (none more than 10 inches long in any direction), culled by Nowak, Caroline Stover-Sickmen, and on-staff curator Alaen Ledesma, from more than 900 submissions. As a whole, the show is bright and vibrant. From afar, the gallery walls are a collage of artistic output, and up close the works are rich in detail, imaginative in form, and triumphant in statement over size.

Some of the works are quite comfortable and feel right-sized within the 10” size constraints, such as the photographs “Overcast Pool” by Johnny White ($225) and “Sun Worshippers (Ritz Carlton, Naples, FL, 1986)” by Marius Muresanu ($500).

The artists take the smallness theme to the max — and as the sizes go down, the charm comes up. As we scale down from 10 inches, we go through “Box of Gouache Paint” by Jaye Schlesinger (Oil on panel, $250), “Autumn Leaves II” by Heng Hui Tiffany Lee (Mixed media, $490), “The A Train” by Christopher Santoro (Digital print on metal panel, $285) — all around seven or eight inches on the long side.

Rounding off at five inches, are Michael Kimble’s “Three of a Kind” (mixed media, $100), Amy Broderick’s “Ex Libris” (Hand-cut reclaimed index cards, $500), a duo of Annie Dillard oil paintings, “Theologian” ($200) and “Ocean Cliff” ($300), and a trio of Lincoln Perry untitled watercolors ($125 each).

Down and down we go, along the way looking at paintings an inch and a half wide — “Light the Way” by Elise Spaid-Roberts (watercolor, $35) —  and eventually we get to Jenny Wu’s “Right Here, Right Now” duo — latex painted cubes no more than a quarter-inch square ($50 each).

Joseph Mayernik’s “Rock Solid Kiss” is large at 10 inches or so, depicting Fred Flintstone planting an affectionate kiss on Wilma’s cheek. Look close and you’ll see that the work is an exercise in smallness itself: a collage made of mini-cutouts from a Flintstones comic book (Flintstones Gold Key Comics #54, $400).

The works mentioned here were some of my favorites, but by no means even begin to represent the remarkable variety that the assembled works present. Consistent across the exhibit is affordability — a pleasing feature of small-sized work. What a great way to bring worthwhile art into the home without breaking the bank. Armed with a budget of, say, a thousand bucks, you could walk away with enough holiday presents for an entire family.

On my way out, I snapped up an aforementioned Lincoln Perry and one of Jenny Wu’s little cubes. I’m embarrassed to say that my bill at the gallery was just a touch less than the bill at the restaurant that followed (seafood pasta for three, and both experiences included wine) — which is a real testament to the show’s affordability.

I would encourage anyone with a little bit of rainy day money to pop on over to JAG Gallery and snap up something special, something that makes you smile. The only trouble you’ll have is buying only one.

The 2021 Small Works Exhibit runs through May 11th at the JAG Gallery, 1075 Duval St., Space C23 (between Duval and Simonton Streets) in Old Town, Key West, open 12 pm to 5 pm every day. Call 305-407-6202 or visit www.jaggallery.art for more information.