The MFA will present a panel discussion via Zoom with three artists featured in its collaborative exhibition Skyway 20/21. Moderated by MFA Curator of Contemporary Art Katherine Pill, the artists will explore one of the most pressing issues of our time: the care of our natural environment.

Each of these three artists bring to light the dramatic shifts of our natural world and the undeniable impact exerted by pollutants and mankind on our fragile ecosystem. Painters Ezra Johnson and Savannah Magnolia expose the pollution of our waterways and bodies, while Janelle Young’s photographic experiments explore the tension between scientific rigor and the unpredictability of nature.

Ezra Johnson was born in Wenatchee, Washington, but now lives and works in Tampa as an associate professor of painting and drawing at USF. Johnson’s works have been exhibited at the Nerman Museum in Kansas, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Site Santa Fe Biennial in New Mexico, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, as well as at many other prestigious galleries and museums nationally and internationally.

Originally from Fort Myers, Savannah Magnolia was fascinated by the sciences as a child and dreamed of one day becoming a neurosurgeon. This passion influenced her path towards a career in medicine, where she studied neuroscience at Boston University. To balance the countless hours in the lab, she began taking painting classes and discovered a secondary love for painting. Now, she is a graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design, and incorporates her scientific background into her paintings.

Janelle Young is a Tampa-based artist and educator with a Master of Fine Arts degree from University of Georgia. She exhibits nationally and internationally, most recently in group shows at the Georgia Museum of Art, Rogue Space Chelsea in New York, Henco Gallery in North Carolina and the Jacksonville University Gallery. She received a Hillsborough County Arts Council Artist Grant in 2019, the Society for Photographic Education Award for Innovations in Imaging in 2015, and a 2013 Individual Art Excellence Grant from the Ohio Arts Council.

Skyway 20/21 is the second iteration of the exhibition celebrating the diversity and talent of artists in the Tampa Bay area. It is also an exercise in collaboration, as it is shared between four institutions: Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the Tampa Museum of Art, and the USF Contemporary Art Museum

FREE for MFA members; Not-yet members $10.

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