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Tony Adams (L) and Tyler Sirota at CLTV studio in Tampa on Sept. 10, 2026. Credit: Palm Tree Content for CLTV<\/p>\nTony Adams (L) and Tyler Sirota at CLTV studio in Tampa on Sept. 10, 2026. Credit: Palm Tree Content for CLTV<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy dream small?\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the attitude of artrepreneur Tyler Sirota when it comes to realizing his dream: Art Fair Tampa<\/a>, billed as \u201cthe region\u2019s first major indoor fine art fair.\u201d<\/p>\n The project is nothing if not ambitious: 300-plus artists in 200 booths, showing over four days, starting Thursday with a VIP Collectors Night, and at a mammoth venue\u2014the 75,000-square-foot West Hall at the Tampa Convention Center.<\/p>\n It\u2019s certainly the biggest art event Sirota has tackled\u2014and he\u2019s organizing it while also handling a day job as assistant engineering manager and art curator at the Epicurean Hotel in South Tampa. The former role involves \u201ckeeping everything looking proper\u201d maintenance-wise; the latter allows him to connect local artists with the hotel, hanging their work there on a revolving basis. It\u2019s one of several relationships he\u2019s forged through the TT Art Collective<\/a> (the TT stands for Tampa\u2019s Top), which he founded seven years ago to create opportunities for local artists. JW Marriott, the Hyde House co-work spaces, and Water Street Tampa\u2019s Night Market are among the venues where he\u2019s brought artists and businesses together.<\/p>\n Sirota, 33, moved to Tampa in 2016 from Syracuse, New York with his fianc\u00e9e (now wife) \u201cto escape the weather.\u201d But the weather isn\u2019t always conducive to outdoor art shows, as he discovered while volunteering for the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts (GFA) in Curtis Hixon Park. He started wondering, \u201cWhy not bring something like this indoors?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n He got serious about his dream last year. \u201cI had conversations with important partners, we took the risk and made it happen,\u201d he told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. He visited major art fairs like Art Basel Miami Beach and its satellites, including Spectrum Red Dot, to which he brought nine TT Collective artists in 2023.<\/p>\n Those fairs, of course, operate on a much more established\u2014and expensive\u2014level than what Sirota\u2019s organizing. For one thing, a booth rental at Red Dot can cost anywhere from $9,000 to $20,000. Art Fair Tampa is charging $1,000-$3,000. And where visitors\u2019 tickets to Red Dot run in the $30-$70 range (and where Miami Art Basel itself charges hundreds or even thousands for passes), admission to Art Fair Tampa is free (with the exception of the VIP Collectors Night, which will be $50 a ticket).<\/p>\n Miami\u2019s fairs are known for record-breaking art sales and boundary-pushing artworks (like Maurizio Cattelan\u2019s infamous duct-taped banana). While no multi-thousand-dollar bananas are slated for Art Fair Tampa, Sirota has rounded up some headliners that sound like fun\u2014Instagram-ready installations like the Tesseract, \u201ca 3-D look into the fourth dimension,\u201d and works by the L.A.-based duo of Antonio Pelayo, a master inker for Disney, and his son Isaac, a painter known for his work in the hip-hop universe.<\/p>\n Sirota has already encountered the kind of last-minute dilemma that can plague a project as big as this. Two weeks before opening, he got a call from the company from which Art Fair was planning to rent walls for the artists\u2019 booths. Their message, he says, was a \u201chuge shock\u201d: They wanted to jack up the price six times from the original estimate of $100,000. Sirota prefers not to name the contractor, someone he trusted and had worked with before, because \u201cthere are going to be some legal matters involved.\u201d He did not have a signed contract with the company.<\/p>\n At first this seemed like it might have been \u201cmy worst nightmare,\u201d said Sirota. He contacted artists right away to warn them about the situation, and many started requesting refunds. Artists did not sign contracts with Sirota, but had expected walls to be provided.<\/p>\n But he didn\u2019t stop looking for a solution. \u201cI was calling everyone from here to Timbuktu to put the pieces back together,\u201d he added. A day later, he found a new contractor. In a follow-up text to the artists, he informed them that \u201cour team worked around the clock and secured a new partner who has confidently stepped in to deliver our walls as promised.\u201d<\/p>\n The news was \u201ca huge relief,\u201d participating artist Clancy Riehm<\/a> told CL. \u201cI\u2019m happy to have a nice way to display everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Riehm is one of many Tampa Bay or Florida-based artists in the show. Featured in CL\u2019s Emerging Artists Issue<\/a> earlier this year, Riehm\u2019s colorful work fuses graphic design and fine art practices. A winner of design competitions sponsored by the Lightning and the Rays, she applied to Art Fair Tampa after seeing calls for applications on Instagram.\u00a0<\/p>\n She\u2019d considered Red Dot, but it was too expensive, adding, \u201cThis is like a good middle ground, bigger than the standard indie flea market, smaller than Art Basel.\u201d<\/p>\n Worst case scenario? \u201cI guess, like, no one shows up \u2014 giant empty space,\u201d she added. \u201cThat wouldn\u2019t be good.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s also a concern of Chase Parker, who was recently featured in Dunedin Fine Art Center\u2019s \u201cWearable Art\u201d show<\/a>.<\/p>\n Parker is known for striking works in which sculptural elements\u2014most often, butterflies\u2014burst from the frame. He sold his first butterfly piece out of a show at the Epicurean. He has shown at the GFA and at fairs in Miami and Austin.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI want to see Art Fair succeed because I want to see Tampa succeed,\u201d he told CL. \u201cBut a four-day show is a lot. You need people circulating all four days\u2026. You can\u2019t have a bunch of artists sitting around complaining.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s not a big concern of Tony Adams (aka @ArtXTony)<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if no one comes,\u201d he said during a recent, sponsored, CLTV podcast, \u201cI\u2019ll make connections with other creatives. But listen, people are coming! There\u2019ve been people in my home town that haven\u2019t seen my work!\u201d<\/p>\n The ebullient Adams had been painting only for himself to de-stress from his pool cleaning business until he attended one of Sirota\u2019s shows at the Epicurean. Since then, his painting career has taken off; he\u2019s shown at the hotel and other venues (he was one of the nine artists TT Art Collective brought to Red Dot) and now his dynamic, eclectic works will be on view at Art Fair Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019s excited about introducing Tampa Bay collectors to artists \u201cwho have been in their back yards, just kinda under their noses.\u201d<\/p>\n And he dreams of bigger things.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring art week in Miami, the entire city is lit up,\u201d he said. \u201cHaving an art explosion in the Tampa area would be very good for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Tracy Midulla has some doubts about that. The founder and director of Tempus Projects<\/a> and director of curatorial and community affairs for the Kress Contemporary complex in Ybor City, she doesn\u2019t see the fair expanding into something like Miami\u2019s Art Week.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have the collector base or the infrastructure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n On the other hand, she says, that base is growing\u2014perhaps helped by Tempus panels like their recent \u201cGo Ahead Buy Some Art.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n And while she is not involved with Art Fair Tampa and hasn\u2019t worked with Sirota, she said, \u201cMore power to him \u2014 it\u2019s an admirable beast to try and tackle to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrew Trujillo knows from buyers. He\u2019s the owner of Drew Marc Gallery<\/a>, the elegant contemporary gallery in South Tampa, and he\u2019s bringing a selection of his artists to Art Fair Tampa.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really excited about it,\u201d he told CL. \u201cTampa\u2019s a booming city. There\u2019s a huge influx of people moving here. If they market the fair correctly, it\u2019s going to pull a lot of collectors.\u201d<\/p>\n Which is no doubt what Tyler Sirota hopes will happen. The fair, which will also feature attractions like live painting and sculpture, will need to make a big splash this year if his next dream is realized: \u201cMake it bigger, better, badder in year two,\u201d he said, \u201cand take over the entire exposition halls.\u201d<\/p>\n But for year one, he\u2019s got a simple request: \u201cI want people to come in with no expectations and be ready to be wowed.\u201d<\/p>\n Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0BlueSky<\/a><\/p>\n Full disclosure: Creative Loafing worked on advertising for the event, which has also garnered support from Visit Tampa Bay, among others.<\/p>\n This article appears in Oct. 08 \u2013 14, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n \t![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/screenshot_2026-10-13_at_5.28.06___am.png\")
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Clancy Riehm at Dave Decker Photography in Ybor City, Florida on Jan. 12, 2026. Credit: Dave Decker \/ Creative Loafing Tampa Bay<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792066882_551_hqdefault.jpg\")
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