Selby Gardens outdoor installations show John Pirman’s Sarasota art in a new light

“John Pirman: Diving into Nature”, Selby Gardens’ latest indoor-outdoor exhibition, is a witty, pretty show featuring the art of John Pirman. What kind of art? That’s a multiple-choice question.

Architectural illustration is Pirman’s local claim to fame. (No surprise. Sarasota Magazine has devoted a full-page feature to said illustrations for over a decade.) I’d known (and loved) that side of his art for years. But this inventive, playful, ambitious exhibition reveals a side I didn’t know. Several, actually.

Pirman is an architectural illustrator – and a damn good one. But he’s also created purely digital illustration, graphic design, postcards, sculpture, and … you name it. His illustrations aren’t limited to structures, either. He’s a multifaceted artist, and this exhibition reveals his many sides. Inside the Museum of Botany and the Arts, the show is a pocket retrospective of everything from Pirman’s childhood drawing (published in “Highlights Magazine”) to his designs for Bloomingdale’s shopping bags. To narrow it down, this review will focus on the exhibition’s outdoor revelations.

Under the sun at Selby Gardens, nature is the star of Pirman’s show, which unfolds on a lazy, winding path through the botanical gardens and along the shore of Sarasota Bay. Lush life grows all around you. Pirman’s imitations of life appear at picture-postcard sites along the path. Each installation is larger-than-life.

What you’re looking at are eight, high-resolution prints on perfectly square (4’ x 4’) panels of highly reflective, powder-coated aluminum. (Excellent work by Shiny Prints of Jupiter, FL.) They’re quite a sight to see.

Seeing Pirman’s illustrations in the pages of a glossy magazine is one thing. Seeing them in living color on installations of this size is quite another. The experience puts Pirman’s art in a whole new light. But it’s more than a question of size.

Pirman’s art has a dialog with nature. That’s the way it always works in Selby Gardens’ outdoor exhibits. But this dialog takes a new direction.

As an artist, Pirman has a keen sense of structure. It’s what makes him a great architectural illustrator. Here, he applies it to nature’s structures. Trees, for example

Pirman knows how trees work: the logic of weight and stress loads. That said, he’s no Photorealist. No birds will try to nest in his painted trees. No humans will mistake his nature scenes for the real thing. When you put those scenes beside real thing the contrast is dreamlike and trippy.

Pirman’s “Moreton Bay Fig Tree” makes the most of this double vision. The subject is Selby Gardens’ towering fig tree of the same name. Pirman distills this behemoth’s essence in his stylized style. The tree’s huge roots resemble a humongous melted candle. Pirman captures their fluidity in shades of violet and deep purple. He also positions two teenage girls (tree climbers?) in the spaces between those roots to indicate the tree’s size. Pirman’s art depicting the tree is right in front of the actual tree. If you stand in a certain spot, art and nature line up perfectly. It’s not trompe-l’oeil. You can clearly tell the difference. And that’s what’s fun about it.

“Koi Pond” offers a similar dialog between art and natural reality. This installation isn’t next to Selby Gardens’ koi pond; it’s in the pond. It’s propped up a few inches above the surface, near the statue of a Jain saint contemplating koi. Pirman’s art clearly references the thing itself. But his image is sharper, brighter and prettier – and the colors really pop. Orange koi, pale statue, green leaves, and swirling blue/green pond. It’s a big bowl of eye candy. Reality is murky and muddy by comparison.

“Dolphin Fountain” takes a few steps away from nature and a giant leap from Selby Gardens. The fountain it reveals is in nearby Island Park. It’s not a living thing. It’s David Wynne’s fountain/sculpture of four happy dolphins splashing about. This installation’s positioned on a line of sight with its subject on the other side of Sarasota Bay. It’s like looking through a giant telephoto lens. Cool. But the connection to the nature theme is thin. (For the record: This is art depicting art depicting nature.) It’s a fun piece. But that’s really stretching it.

Other outdoor installations increase the distance from Mother Nature. Pirman’s “Marie Selby House” is the solitary architectural illustration. “Jackknife Diver” shows a pretty lady in a one-piece bathing suit diving into a pond (humans are nature too, right?). “Cheer” is a bright, orange abstract sculpture. It doesn’t represent nature, or anything.

I figure the “Diving into Nature” theme is pretty much an excuse. Nature’s the star of Pirman’s show. But he wanted a supporting cast. I can live with that.

Whatever its subject matter, Pirman’s art has a heavenly simplicity. His process of creation is hellishly complicated. The recipe includes pencil sketches, Adobe illustrator, 3M spray adhesive, colored paper, printers, patience, X-Acto knives, Band-Aids, great hand-eye coordination, and lots of meticulous planning. At the end of this painstaking process?

The resulting images aren’t sketchy or painterly. They’re the opposite. Simply put, Pirman’s art is a mosaic of colored shapes. Solid colors – pure colors with no gradations of tone or blending. That’s pleasing to the eye. But where’d he get the idea?

Pirman’s influences are legion. (Art Deco is the obvious one.) He says the stylized WPA posters of America’s wonders (and the joy of road trips) of the 1940s made a big impression on him. Pirman also cites vintage Swiss travel posters (also stylized) celebrating ocean liners, planes, and trains. That makes sense.

Pirman’s style is flowing and geometric, but hardly static. The circular flow of his compositions creates a sense of forward movement. Stylized travel art does that, too. It’s designed to move you and long to take a trip to someplace better. Nice, Cannes, Rio, London, Rome, Sarasota. It’s just a sea voyage or plane flight away!

Pirman’s art reveals a world on permanent vacation. Expect no zombies or slums. Just sunny scenes of pools, boats, beaches, and mountains. His world’s two seasons are Endless Summer or Winter Wonderland. Whatever the season, the people are happy. If I lived in their world, I’d be happy too.

This exhibition was co-curated by artist John Pirman, Dr. David Berry, (Selby Gardens’ chief museum curator), and Kelsie Childs (assistant curator). The creative team behind the outdoor installations includes: Mike McLaughlin (senior vice president for horticulture) and Nathan Burnaman (associate director of horticultural exhibits).

‘John Pirman: Diving into Nature’

Runs through Sept. 17 at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, 1534 Mound St., Sarasota. 941-366-5731; selby.org

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Selby Gardens exhibit gives new view of John Pirman illustrations