Curator Mark Ormond seizes the helm of Craig Rubadoux: Magical, Mystical, Fantastical to exhibit over a dozen paintings, drawings and mixed-media at Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art on Palm Avenue.

Rubadoux's mastery of figure and form, composition and gesture is widely acknowledged. His work is affected by a love for the environment and circus. Rubadoux says his work can be inspired by “a poem, imagination, music, memory,” and the process is akin to a “mental alchemy.” He welcomes the emerging memories of prolonged life, saying “[W]hat goes in must come out.”

Rubadoux also focuses on line, color and spatial relationships. His art is featured in both public and private collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, and The Ringling.

Ormond says the artist's approach “is neither pure realism nor pure abstraction. He has, since the early 1960s, fused his ideas about drawing and painting. Through Rubadoux’s coordination of hand and eye responding to his creative intuition, we experience his depth of introspection, breadth of perception and height of achievement in expressive inventiveness.”

“It takes only a glance to recognize a Rubadoux creation,” says Sheila Moore, director of Allyn Gallup Contemporary. “His style is inimitable and unmistakable.”

Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art is located at 1288 N. Palm Ave., Sarasota. The exhibit's opening reception begins at 5:30 p.m. March 2, and the show continues until March 31.