01/29/2025
ALEXART INTERNATIONAL ART GALLERY CELEBRATES ITS FIRST TEN YEARS -- WHAT A JOURNEY!
As we step into 2025, AlexArt International Art Gallery in Sarasota, Florida, is celebrating a big milestone: 10 years of amazing activity and growth! Its story, as a gallery, intertwines with that of the Dal Boni’s, the Italian family who built it in 2015 where the Golden Apple Dinner Theater once used to be. It quickly became a new must-see art destination in Florida.
The gallery bears the name of Alexa Scanziani — a Harvard graduate, a New York Times international reporter and art connoisseur, and Fabio Dal Boni’s wife. From a market search, Sarasota immediately appeared to be a Top 5 Small City for Art in the States. Moreover, the location next to the Sarasota Opera House seemed ideal for the high level of culture and refined taste for fine art.
At the time, the Dal Boni's had moved from Milan, Italy to the States on an O-1 visa which is issued to People with Extraordinary Ability or Achievement in their field. It was a time of big projects but also of big worries as Alexa’s husband, suffered a massive heart attack on December 22nd, 2015.
AlexArt International opened its doors representing an exclusive artist — the Italian master Massimo Meda who, with his very large 3-D paintings that glow under the black light, captivated American collectors. The grand opening on May 21st, 2016 was a "wow" experience with the artist in attendance and since then, black lights have been turned on and off for the pleasure of visitors. After the two-year agreement for Meda's solo and permanent exhibition, the gallery introduced other internationally and nationally acclaimed artists, too.
In the meantime, Fabio Dal Boni was on a continuous quest to find those supernatural colors he had seen in his Near Death Experience and tried to find the right medium to reproduce them. In 2017, after multiple attempts, he found it! He discovered that by using special inks and treating aluminum at very high temperatures, he could paint the most vibrant and beautiful sceneries of Florida and of the places he visited. Collectors praised his fine art, a mix between new pop art and hyperrealism, and prized him with a great positive response.
Strong of the new success, in November 2017, Fabio had the opportunity to showcase some of his works — architectural scenes — at an event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
They sold, as sold many of his artworks exhibited at Miami Art Basel the following week and later on at Art Santa Fe in New Mexico, Art Expo in New York, and Architecture of Time in Boston.
2017 was a very important year also for the Dal Boni's who were issued the Green card!
At art shows, Fabio and Alexa fell in love with a selected number of American artists whom they decided to represent in their gallery. On the walls two abstract artists appeared — the vibrant oil paintings by Bill Stone and the metaphysical mixed media artworks by Sharon Grimes. It was a beautiful combination that complemented the gallery’s art offer really well and cemented a beautiful collaboration that still continues.
With the passing of the years, other artists began to collaborate with AlexArt International Gallery. A large group of Italian artists such as world-famous oil landscape and portrait painter Guido Borelli, his wife Danka Weitzen with her beautiful oil still life and horses on canvas, cartoonist Paolo Passoni, fashion photographer Edoardo Montaina, acrylic painter Mauro Drudi, sculptor Carmelo Messina, and then Canadian photographer Andrea Hillebrand, American master watercolorist Michele Tabor Kimbrough, Turkish acrylic painter Lara Sabrina Yilmaz, and Venezuelan mix-media artist Oriana Gerez. The gallery also holds a yearly exhibition of the great Masters of 18th-century Venetian paintings.
2022 marked a huge achievement and honor for the Dal Boni's — they became American citizens!
2023 meant a huge deal for Fabio Dal Boni who, by now, had become the in-residence artist. Besides being a successful artist, he became a sought-after writer with An Extra Life — 8 Minutes in Heaven with my Father, a gripping firsthand account of his NDE and an inspiring story of love and miraculous rebirth which was also presented at the Heart of Gold Starlight Gala, a joint event of the Pepin Heart Institute and Advent Health Foundation, in Tampa Florida.
Over the years, AlexArt International Art Gallery — with 5-step ceilings that rise to 16 feet, three huge 3-panel arched windows, sculpted concrete pillars and desk, and an impressive stainless steel vault —has been the perfect setting for poetry readings, book presentations, concerts, private dinners, weddings, and charity and community events.
We'll celebrate this impressive 10-year milestone with a series of free Live Painting Exhibitions of our wonderful artists. The first event will kick off on January 31st — come meet Master Watercolor Artist Michele Tabor Kimbrough and thank you for being part of our incredible journey!
