61 Artists Exhibited in One Year By Curatorial Duo Named Takeover

Takeover: 61 artists exhibited downtown by 2 UCF grads in less than a year 

Halee Sommer and Masami Koshikawa, an art curatorial duo made up of two like-minded UCF art school grads, met two years ago. Koshikawa got her MFA in Emerging Media and Sommer got her BA in Art History. 

Earlier this year, the director of the UCF Art Gallery, Yulia Tikhovova, paired them up to organize events and shows inside Canvs (Web) at 101 S Garland Ave to coincide with the monthly downtown art party known as Third Thursdays.  

They gave themselves a name: Takeover (Facebook) and a mission: expand the Orlando art community and increase the city's art market through supplying downtown offices with art. 

Since they started, they've exhibited 61 artists. 

Their venue is Canvs, a tech co-working space. They feel it's important to merge a tech based environment with arts. Sommer says, "It's an essential idea if we want to continue to expand the art community in Orlando. It's important to engage a new audience who normally doesn't get regular exposure to fine art." It also doesn't hurt that Canvs gets hundreds of new people in and out every week. 

They curate the shows together each month typically using emerging and UCF (graduate & undergraduate) alumni and current students. Their reputation is growing as evidenced by the influx of unsolicited inquiries from artists through Facebook. 

They showcase all types of media. However, when video art gets hung, it gets a great response from the space's tech entrepreneurs. More digital media art, they feel, would connect the Canvs crowd to what they do.

Each piece on display is for sale. Buyers contact Takeover via Facebook or email to make a purchase.

On Third Thursdays, in addition to the fresh new art on the walls, guests are invited to a lecture from an invited guest or a public talk, usually on the subject of creativity in the city. Admission is always free and open to the public. 

For now it's a fun side project for both, but reflects a mutually desirable career path in the future.