MIZE presents:

REALM

The word REALM has many meanings and is open to interpretation.

PHYSICAL KINGDOMS or AREA UNDER RULE / "defending the realm"

METAPHORICAL DOMAINS OF INTEREST / (politics, art, science fiction)

FANTASY WORLDS / SPIRITUAL or CONCEPTUAL AREAS

THE DIGITAL REALM / "where physical and virtual realities blur"

THE REALM OF DREAMS / "the fantastical, non-physical world experienced during sleep”

Each artist was given the concept of REALM to create a new piece/pieces for this exhibit.

Featuring the works of:
NICHOLAS HOLMAN, ANDREA PAWLISZ, GABRIEL RAMOS, SCOTT WAYNE, AMY ILIC-VOLPE, SAUMITRA CHANDRATREYA, WASIL, ACUTE PERCEPTION, SAM SIMON, RHYS MEATYARD, ARTIST JONES, CRISTI LOPEZ, CHAD JACOBS, CALAN REE, TYLER GILLESPIE, KATIE NIEWODOWSKI, MIKEYBEAR MCGRATH, CAKE MARQUES, CARRIE JADUS, REBEKAH LAZARIDIS, SPENCER MEYERS, ERIC DOCTORS, KEIFER CALKINS, JON STINE, BRYAN NICHOLS, ETHAN EARLY, NOVAFRO, and MARK CASTLE

FloridaRAMA / The Factory
2606 Fairfield Ave S Building 5, St. Petersburg, FL 33712

Exhibit on view May 8th - June 28th, 2026.

Curated by Chad Mize.

Cactus Friend invites the viewer to enter the realm of The Garden. The Garden is a safe space that offers moments of tranquility, a break from the anxiety, sadness and anger that plague our daily lives as we watch the news. The Garden offers a pause from scrolling and distraction. It is a place where one can find their center, recharge and be in much better shape to fight the good fight.

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"Cactus Friend"

Calan Ree

Ceramic
15" W x 20" L x 7.5" D
SOLD

As a teen, and even now as an adult, the Disney movie, The Princess and the Frog, was one of my favorite movies that showcased Disney’s first Black American Princess (B.A.P.S). As a film set in Louisiana, the realm of spirituality, in the form of New Orleans Voodoo, played a critical role throughout the film. However, in a real-world context, for centuries Voodoo has often been misrepresented and demonized through colonization, which eventually led to a subset of the black diaspora having a dissociative relationship with the practice.
For my realm of choice, I decided to depict the two practitioners from the original film, Mama Ode and Dr. Faciller, as two sides of the same Louisiana voodoo coin. As Mama Ode stays true to the practices and traditions passed down from the ancestors of the transatlantic slave trade as a means of survival, Dr. Faciller on the other hand, decides to take the commercialization approach of his gifts of voodoo and conjure up schemes for his own benefit.

The plot twist to my painting is what if these two met as Mama Ode hears throughout the bayou the damage caused by Dr. Faciller and thinks it's time for him to truly remember why possessing such a powerful gift needs to be used for communal healing and not for one's personal gain. She then realizes he must also heal his own past wounds, which led him to become a person who must be feared in order to gain respect. Due to this consequence, he constantly dreaded retribution from those whom he had harmed in his past voodoo ritual ventures.
Deep in the bayou, Mama Ode appears as Dr. Faciller is faced with his own spiritual crossroad, where he needs to unlearn his ways to become a better person for himself and their people or have his soul consumed by Earthly desires. Mama Ode blesses him with the divine Àṣẹ (the power to make things happen or change) giving him grace and guidance, that he could use to restore the balance of his people.

The tool of representation can sometimes be misused to spread disinformation and evoke fear. Reclaiming one's perception is a gentle act of enlightenment—unlearning manipulated truths fed by the media, and offering grace by stepping into someone else's world. Taking the time to understand the genuine meaning and motivation behind their cultural practices can foster empathy and connection.

With that, I leave you with the following message:
“May this piece heal you, give truth to the unknown, of oneself.”

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"Smeauxk & Mirrorz"

Novafro

Acrylic on Panel
24" x 18"
$999

The DreamSand Sisters are ethereal creatures of some “Sandman” entity. They float through the sky in billowing clouds; dropping dream sand on those that sleep. An idea that has darker roots: spawned from when my grandmother was in a coma-like state. The sisters themselves, are those that lay dormant in a sleeping state. Working in a dreamland while their bodies heal.

The DreamSand Sisters poem 2026
by Spencer Meyers

The DreamSand Sisters
Fly through the night,
Briefly chosen for
The sandman’s plight,
Each-a soul
Whose body is healing,
Caught in the mid
Of conscious and dreaming
Dream Sand chosen
For hearts so true,
Happily called
For nights so few,
And when the body heals
That’s when she will awake
Leaving another place
For a sister to take.

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"Dreamsand Sisters"

ArtofSpencerPM

Acrylic on Panel
28.5" x 23"
$450

“New Sight” is a dream-state visual of the rebirth of sleep. New organs, new eye, new light. The realm we emerge from each night. We escape to this realm to rebuild ourselves better than the previous day.

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"New Sight"

Mark Castle

Oil on canvas
20" x 16”
$850

Otto reminds us what it feels like to be vulnerable in a world that doesn’t always welcome us as we are. We create realms of safety and protection for ourselves and for the communities we build, sheltering one another from judgment, hostility, and oppression beyond those walls.

There is strength in surviving, but also in remaining soft enough to care for one another. When instinct teaches us to scan a room, look over our shoulders, or search for exits and shelter, we must also remember to be present and ready to hold each other up. Protection is not only defense it’s community, presence, and the refusal to let one another stand alone.

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"Otto the Magnificent"

MikeyBear McGrath

Acrylic on wood
24" x 14"
$600

This is a piece I have wanted to paint for a long time. I have long drawn inspiration from the world of JRR Tolkien, and The Battle of Pelennor Fields from The Return of the King has always been one of my favorite parts: an outnumbered and overpowered army charges into battle against evil, vowing to fight with all their might regardless of what end may come to them. Especially in recent times, I have re-read and re-watched this part because it gives me hope and rouses me to fight my own battles, no matter how overpowered and outnumbered I may often feel. The darker things become, the easier it seems to sink into hopelessness, this helps to remind me that nothing is truly lost as long as we remain in the fight. To paraphrase a line from another LOTR character, that there is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.

In my interpretation, our collective foe - fascism, hatred, evil - is represented by the figure in the dark foreground, inspired by The Witch King of Angmar. Our heroes, charging in from the light, ride fierce cats into battle. The composition itself takes inspiration from many renaissance and baroque era battle scene paintings.

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"The Battle of Purrlennor Fields"

Rhys Meatyard

Mixed: Watercolor and colored pencil
12" x 36"
$1250

A realm is often understood as a contained space. Defined, bordered, held within invisible limits. But I’m interested in what happens when those limits fail. When the internal spills outward. Because your mind/conscious can be unrelentingly dark, these realms can be bright and boundless, becoming more than spaces of ideation, they become sites of defiance.

This work explores the moment where “your” realm, interior landscape of thought, memory, and imagination, begins to bleed into the external world.

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"bleeding through"

Scott Wayne

Canvas, acrylic, sculpting clay, paint
$500

This piece examines the consequences of anti-Pride legislation on Florida's LGBTQ+ community. By appropriating language directly from SB 1134 and placing it in tension with the word "PRIDE," the work interrogates how such laws marginalize queer individuals, casting them as "other" and confining them to a separate "REALM."

The work addresses the lasting harm these policies inflict and the broader regression LGBTQ+ Floridians have faced under the DeSantis administration. It serves as an invitation to reckon with the loss of visibility, dignity, and safety when legislation is used as a weapon against identity.

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"Untitled, "Pride", SB 1134, 2026"

Ethan Early

Archival Pigment Print
24 in × 36 in
19¾ in × 27½ in
24 in × 36 in
SOLD

This lamp is the culmination of 35 years of research on Madonna and the culture of shared secrecy within a shattered taboo of celebrity. This lamp becomes a ritual by kneeling in front of it and giving your confession through the hole. Kneel on the dance floor and tell me your secrets. Turn me on and speak to my hole. Your pink light and my dusty disco ball.

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"Concessions lamp"

Keifer Calkins

Mixed Media
67" x 25" x 25"
$250

The symbolism of the cross extends far beyond its religious connotations, transcending cultural boundaries to become a significant element involved in various societies throughout history.

It is in turn a symbol of life, death, spirituality, power and belonging. A bearer of hope.

A connection between the divine and the human.

It represents the union of the spiritual and the earthly, the sacred and the profane.

It represents ideals such as balance, harmony, order, prosperity, good fortune, and
the wheel of life.

Our observations, focus, belief, thoughts, feelings, action, render our reality around us.

We are the REALM!

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"Wheel of Life"

Wasíl

Acrylic paint, synthetic polymer, spun polyester, on shaped up cycled housing insulation.
44" x 40"
$1000

This piece extends my Resonance series, which explores how systems connect and influence one another, even when those interactions aren’t directly visible.

For Realm, I approach space or place as a field rather than a fixed location. The sculpture gathers and flows, shaped by gravity, weight, and interaction. Layered textiles and stitched nodes act as points of accumulation, tension, and transfer, mapping how forces move through a system.

The work draws on ideas of superposition and non-locality, where multiple potential states or realms exist simultaneously. Through attention and interaction, certain states become more defined while others recede, existing in an in-between condition, neither fully contained nor fully dispersed. The piece suggests a realm governed by shifting relationships, where boundaries remain open and continuously reformed.

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"Boundary Condition"

Amy Ilic-Volpe

Mixed Media Soft Sculpture
76" x 64"
$888

"Using medieval art techniques through copper plate etching I wanted to create a sequel inspired by The Unicorn Tapestries housed in the MOMA Cloisters. In this historic piece created in the 1400’s, the unicorn is chained to a tree and fenced in, having been captured and conquered. In my etching I’ve released her as she lies in a bed of flowers and critters, free and at peace with herself and her safe surroundings. A night sky looms above."

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"Unicorn Garden"

Rebekah Lazaridis

Intaglio Copper Plate Etching with À la poupeé rainbow ombré ink on Rives BFK 11x14”
18" x 14"
SOLD

A pair of dumbbells define a gymnasium. With this work, I want to argue that a gymnasium is a utilitarian, physical space where we work out, but it is fundamentally a culturally queer space.

To help me make this argument, I decided to make a pair of soft sculpture dumbbells. These dumbbells are adorned with images of the covers of physique magazines like Physique Pictorial, Grecian Guild Pictorial, and MANual. These physique publications brought a lot of queer men together through their circulation and dialogue over the correspondence through the United States Postal Service when they couldn’t be openly queer. I also include images of the covers of two books - Buying Gay, by David Johnson, and SWOLE by Michael Andor Bordeur. I read these books for research. These books introduced me to the history of Physique Publications and essays about gym culture. You will also find screenshots included on the dumbbells of Sniffies, a queer cruising app where cruisers can check in to particularly queer gyms, transforming them into spaces to connect, convene, and cornhole.

The text on dumbbells at the gymnasiums usually denote the amount of weight we are lifting while using the dumbbells. The dumbbells I made denote something completely different.

These dumbbells are relics of the present, and our future where we gatekeep queer culture for ourselves and reclaim more spaces for us.

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"We Construct Intricate Rituals, Which Allow us to Touch, The Skin of Other Men"

Saumitra Chandratreya

Inkjet on Cotton, Buckram, Polyester Thread, Embroidery thread, Poly-fil, Bicycle Hooks, and Spray Paint.
15" x 8" each
$1200

we live in a time of hyper-consumption of visuals, so i’ve grown tired of looking at images of people and things in any context. as a photographer, that’s a bit disturbing, so i didn’t want to make another image. i was drawn to the idea of making something post-visual, something that leaves space to imagine again. portal steps back to a zero point where substrate and instinct meet for the first time.

special thanks to aaron + heather

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"portal"

acute perception

mixed medium, raw cotton canvas, iridescent glaze, duct tape
76" x 36"
$1690

Taking inspiration from medieval tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, and the fantasy stories of my youth, I wanted to present some basic ground rules for what an ideal realm would be like. Maybe if we strive to accept, understand, and stand up for each other and reject the rampant tyranny that seeks to further divide us, this utopian world will become less fantastical and more of something that is well within the realm of possibility.

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"Rules of the Realm or: A Topical Triptych for the Modern Era"

Chad Jacobs

Acrylic Paint on Panel
12" x 6.5" each
$3600 (sold as a set)

this is a introspective look at my political stress. 

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Andrea Pawlisz
"Delicate Like a Bomb"
Acrylic on canvas
24” x 24”
$600

The most difficult journey I've had to take was by far becoming a mother to my daughter. We had tried to have a child for six years before I decided to take over the journey from my then-partner. As a masculine-presenting member of the LGBTQ community, everything I thought I knew about myself and who I am was challenged the moment that test came up positive. I felt emotions I had never felt before. I had grappled with femininity like I never had before. The only way I can describe it is entering a chrysalis with masculine energy and emerging with a very confusing feminine energy that engulfed what had come before it. And I was left with one map – my daughter. She taught me so much about myself. She taught me all that I am capable of. She taught me patience, unconditional love and selflessness. This painting is inspired by one of my favorite photographs of her. It embodies her silliness, her creativity, her kindness and above all, the joy she brings to me. This is how I like to think she came to me when she chose me as a mom. She knew the journey I was on wasn't easy, yet she came bearing everything I never understood I needed and helped me find my way as the person I was becoming.

Why is her face covered? It is a new extension of my "Head in the Clouds" series that uses a "space cloud," or nebula. Her mother and I don't like to share her face publicly on social media. It's not only a privacy concern, but something we choose to let her decide for herself one day when she's ready. Adding the nebula cloud plays perfectly on the idea that I didn't know what she would look like before I had seen her.

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"How I Became a Mom"

Artist Jones

Acrylic on Canvas
16" x 16"
NFS

The Two Lovers brings together figures, architectural fragments, and Caribbean visual references within a compressed, shadowed space. The bodies appear close, yet partially obscured held in a moment that suggests intimacy shaped by concealment. Their proximity evokes connection, but the layering of forms interrupts full visibility, creating a sense of hesitation or distance within closeness.

Rooted in my experience as a queer Puerto Rican living in the United States, the work stages an encounter between desire and obscurity. Architecture functions as both shelter and barrier, echoing the ways environments can hold, protect, and simultaneously restrict the body. The figures are not fully fixed; they emerge and recede, suggesting the instability of being seen, recognized, or understood on one’s own terms.

By weaving together personal symbolism with cultural references, the piece reflects a tension between belonging and displacement. It considers how intimacy persists within conditions of partial visibility, where connection is negotiated through what can be revealed and what must remain hidden.

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"The two lovers"
Year: 2022

Gabriel Ramos

Acrylic aerosol paint on canvas
40" x 30"
$5000

Morir Soñando is a Dominican drink of milk and orange juice so delicious its name directly translates to "to die dreaming." This piece, rendered in the citrusy tones of the drink itself, presents eventual lovers lost in a private vision of the other, separate but together in their fantasy. The ache of longing is reclaimed as something beautiful, sensual, and indulgent.

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"Morir Soñando"

Cristi Lopez

Colored pencil, acrylic, and collage on paper mounted to panel; diptych comprised of two
24" x 12" each
$2700 (sold as a pair)

My REALM exists at the intersection of the queer experience and an approaching environmental collapse.

As a queer person, I’ve often found myself in spaces where I don’t fully belong—learning how to mask, adapt, and assimilate just to exist. That tension lives in this work. I place nude figures—my partner Dylan and myself—into a frozen landscape, a setting where nudity feels unnatural and exposed, because that dissonance mirrors the queer experience of being visibly “out of place.”

The light in this piece is intentionally intense. The sun acts as a kind of supernova—life-giving, yet ultimately destructive. The very thing we depend on is also what will undo us, a consequence of our own making.

I physically torched the right side of the frame—the same side the light pours in from—so the source of illumination becomes the source of destruction. On the left, fleeting color emerges—an attempt, both human and environmental, to escape what’s coming.

The iceberg looms larger than we can comprehend. It is the last of its kind, constantly shifting, disappearing in real time.

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"What Next?"

Nicholas Holman

Acrylic on Linen
25" x 21"
$1900

Deep Dive belongs to my Florida Girl series and was created for Realm, a group exhibition. I chose the Neotropical Realm, drawn to its intensity, color, biodiversity, fragility, and resilience - and also because I call it home.

Here, the submerged Florida Girl's features open into reef, current, creature, and memory. Sharks, always in motion, pass through her thoughts. Fish become her eyes. Divers move through the tear lines as if entering her submerged self.

By merging the figure’s interior world with a neotropical reef, this painting considers the shared strength and vulnerability of psychological and ecological worlds. Both accumulate wounds slowly. Both hold memory in hidden systems. Both survive through balance, adaptation, and attention.

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"Deep Dive"

Carrie Jadus

Oil on Panel
44.5" x 33.5"
$3000

large language models have eaten all my words again

the internet thinks everything    
i have ever thought & god

was the only one who was supposed
to know all that! which is to say

i will not be answering your emails. 

which is to say the poem
has to technology different.     

because ART  IS REACTION.

please do not see this as a cry for help.

it’s a poem. a painting.
a love song. a death. a gift.

a reminder of hands held tight.

*

Process Note: I made these poems/paintings/prints on a xerox machine. I first abstracted typewritten text from lines of poems then I collaged and distorted strips of paper on the copy machine in my friend’s dining room.

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Tyler Gillespie

"self-portrait 3039"

paper, typewritten text, collage, xerox
36" x 24"
$500

"boyfriend drawing"

paper, typewritten text, collage, xerox
20" x 24"
$350

This rosette is a collaborative work that bridges traditional woodworking craftsmanship with contemporary computer design and fabrication techniques.

Composed of 432 individual pieces of stained glass, the design draws upon principles of sacred geometry, chromatic resonance, and theoretical harmonic relationships associated with the frequency of 432Hz and the musical note A. Through the fusion of light, symmetry, and material, the work explores the intersection of mathematics, vibration, and metaphysical symbolism.

Conceived as an abstract portal for astral travel, the piece invites viewers to consider the possibility of infinite realms existing beyond immediate perception.

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"Rosette A432"

Jon Stine / Bryan Nichols

Stain Glass, Walnut and Mixed Media
40" x 40"
$25,000

"Spheres of Influence" is a term I’ve adopted from the crew of Artemis II, inspired by their description of journeying to the far side of the moon. As they transitioned from the gravitational pull of one celestial body to another, they navigated realms invisible to the naked eye. From that vast distance, their perspective of Earth shifted to one of profound beauty and "Oneness"—the realization that we are all fellow crew members on this singular, spherical spaceship.
These paintings represent imagined realms inspired by both the cosmos and the microcosm. Whether peering through a telescope or a microscope, the viewer is drawn into a "gravitational understanding" that everything, regardless of scale, is ultimately One.

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"Spheres of Influence"

Katie Niewodowski

Watercolor, acrylic, gemstones on paper
9" x 9" each
$125 each (#8, #9 SOLD)

The concept is imaginary architecture on an imaginary world that serves as an arrival point and portal. I have been reading tons of science fiction lately and I see this piece situated on a faraway world with spaceships coming and going and as a place that beings from many realms meet and gather.

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"Docking Station on Vesica Piscis"

Eric Doctors

Ceramic
20"W x 13"D x 15"H
$6000

On May 17th, 2004, Tanya McCloskey and Marcia Kadish became the first same-sex couple to be legally married in the My Personal Space explores the quiet need to create boundaries in uncertain times. The imagined box becomes both shelter and window. A space of protection without complete isolation. Inside, there is reflection, vulnerability, and growth; outside, beauty continues to exist and call us back to connection. This piece speaks to the balance between shielding ourselves from the weight of the world while still allowing space for hope, and human presence to enter.

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"My Personal Space"

Cake Marques

Oil on Canvas
24" x 20"
SOLD

Titled British Queen Twins, Sam Simon’s paired portraits of Diana, Princess of Wales and George Michael place the two cultural icons in dialogue across distinct yet overlapping realms—monarchy and pop sovereignty, inheritance and self-invention. One a literal queen, the other a would-be queen, each navigated the heightened terrain of visibility and devotion while concealing private truths: Diana her conflicted feelings within the monarchy, Michael his sexuality in the early years of fame.

Referencing the aesthetics of cameo jewelry and engraved currency, Simon renders their faces—not as profiles but as direct, confrontational portraits—minted emblems of power and value. Within these constructed realms, gender identity, vanity, and iconography converge, suggesting how the public visage can serve simultaneously as crown and mask.

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"British Twins"

Sam Simon

Acrylic on Canvas
30" x 30" each
$1500 each