The Everlasting Allure of Still Life Art in SWFL
January 29, 2025

January 2025 issue of Gulfshore Life
(excerpt from full article):
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.
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.




