The Everlasting Allure of Still Life Art in SWFL

In a classroom studio off the sunny sculpture garden at Arts Bonita’s Old 41 Road campus, artist Carol Broman plucks mini sculptures, worn books and antique teapots from her nearby shelf of curiosities. She twists and shifts her disparate subjects into a scene, fussing over each minute aspect of the composition until the light brings her perspective into focus, breathing life into the static configuration. “When you’re a still life artist, you collect all kinds of things,” the Fort Myers painter says.

From bowls of sun-ripened fruit to ornate table settings, still life paintings preserve humanity’s material desires across centuries. The genre flourished in the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries. As maritime trade and affluence transformed the Dutch home, artists were inspired to capture the influx of novel Middle Eastern carpets, Chinese porcelain and exotic foods on canvas. Though once classified as art’s lowest rank for its palatable and marketable subject matter, still life drove artistic greatness—from Jan Davidsz de Heem’s lavish Still Life with Parrots (c. 1640), on view at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, to Cézanne’s perspective-shifting tabletops to Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup compositions that upended art-world hierarchies.

In Southwest Florida, gallerists and artists find fresh inspiration in one of art’s most enduring traditions. While many modern-day creators diverge from the genre, several Gulf Coast painters find powerful resonance in classical approaches. Carol studied under renowned New York artist Jacob Collins, a leading figure in the revival of classical realism, and carries on his style to craft visual narratives with uncanny volume and depth. In her works, cracked book spines suggest years of reading; weathered surfaces hint at hidden histories.

Photography by Christina Bankson

Carol broman painting

“[My still lifes are] like a portrait of a person told through the stuff we carry around with us.” —Carol Broman

Carol uses a method Jacob calls ‘form painting,’ identifying key aspects of her subject then rendering each section one at a time (an eye, for example, may be broken up into the brow, upper lid, eyeball and lower lid). She creates a natural gradient by painting from the most light-exposed surfaces into shadow, capturing distinct qualities of each surface—the gleam of polished metal bowls, the transparency of glass vases, the luminous folds of silk drapery. “I’m painting the light,” she says. Carol’s contemporary sensibility emerges via playful juxtapositions of modern objects, jewel-toned palettes and resort-style prints, linking classical technique to contemporary decor. She shares her still life-honed mastery with students as a principal instructor at Arts Bonita, where she demystifies perspective, form, light and visual storytelling.

Filled with seashells, avian sculptures, tattered anthologies and gleaming glass vessels, Carol’s canvases resonate with the work of Fort Myers artist Douglas Flynt—another of Carol’s mentors, who also trained under Jacob. For Douglas, understanding light and its impact on the perception of color is key to crafting compositions that are not only precise but more honest.

Like many contemporary still life artists, the oil painter was discouraged from pursuing traditional, realist styles, but mentors like Jacob and late Florida figure painter and sculptor Edward Jonas reinforced the value of direct representation as a way of communicating directly with the viewer without pretense. Though a traditionalist at heart, Douglas—a New York Academy of Art graduate—often uses digital rendering as a means of instruction or ideation—adding modernity and mathematical fidelity to his use of color theory.

In Naples, Italian-born Dario Campanile’s oil paintings reflect his appreciation for Caravaggio, often credited as a founding father of the Roman still life genre. Dario’s 2011 In Transition recalls Caravaggio’s fruit bowls with an almost mise en abyme (placing a copy of an image within itself) effect. The painting within a painting shows a framed still life of grapes and cheese as part of a larger tableau in the artist’s workspace; it’s as if the artist has put down the brush and walked away from his latest creation. The scene creates a sense of depth and invites the viewer into the studio, capturing three moments: the staged fruit, the finished painting and the moment of its completion.

Dario Campanile’s Whimsical Seduction (2014)

Dario takes inspiration from Italian baroque painter Caravaggio, who popularized the genre in Rome, with richly hued tablescapes, wines and fresh fruit—symbols of abundance and status through the ages.

Dario channels Dutch maestros’ lauded use of illusionist trompe l’oeil techniques to bring his paintings to life, with fluttering birds, pinned postcards, just-bitten apples’ dripping juices and vases shining in the golden hour light. “Still life paintings have a life unto themselves,” he says.

Tbilisi-born artist Nodar Khokhobashvili, represented by Naples’ East West Fine Art, offers a rough-hewn approach to realism through textured works on wood. His Salty Fish and Pickle is simple—depicting a fish, two pickles and a glass of clear liquid—yet striking in its use of color. The vibrant green cucumbers cut through the largely grayscale palette; while the rough wooden surface, reminiscent of his street art beginnings, adds a tactile dimension to the scene. “[Wood] invites the viewer to feel the weight of the objects, not just see them,” he says.

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Nodar Khokhobashvili’s Feast of Cheese (2022)/Courtesy East West Fine Art

Nodar Khokhobashvili channels his street art beginnings into still life motifs, blending realism with an expressionist bent. The bright greens in Salty Fish and Pickle (second picture) add a striking contrast to the wooden surface’s grayscale palette.

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Nodar Khokhobashvili’s Salty Fish and Pickle (2022)/Courtesy East West Fine Art

Beyond classical revivals, many contemporary artists subvert the genre. Consider Yayoi Kusama’s surrealist-meets-Pop Art still lifes, where polka dots consume gourds and flowers, Mat Collishaw’s Dutch-style compositions of death row prisoners’ final meals, or Ori Gersht’s photographs of exploding floral arrangements.

This season, two examples of the genre’s evolution are on display at Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum. Opening in February, In the Making: Sketches, Studies, and Maquettes includes Albert Swinden’s Untitled (Still Life #1) and Untitled (Still Life #2)—geometric studies revealing how modern artists deconstructed still lifes into flat planes and basic geometric shapes. Meanwhile, Becky Suss’ The Dutch House, on exhibit through January 5, points to still life’s contemporary interpretations. Based on Ann Patchett’s bestselling novel, the show includes a series of still lifes depicting small books within the artist’s overarching study of domestic spaces.

Once dismissed as lowly and still often overlooked, the still life genre has proven remarkably prescient. Centuries after its formal categorization, the genre’s influence permeates contemporary visual culture. From luxury product advertisements to magazine spreads to curated social media feeds, composed snapshots respond to our enduring drive to arrange and document the world around us. Classical or subversive, works continue to achieve what early critics overlooked: transforming the prosaic into the poetic.

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Carol Broman’s Persistence of Vision (2012)