A Beautiful Surprise: My Painting Featured by PBS/NPR Southwest Florida

🌿 Where the Birds Waited Featured in PBS/NPR’s Coverage of ‘Vice & Virtue’

I just discovered that WGCU — the PBS and NPR affiliate for Southwest Florida — featured my painting Where the Birds Waited in their arts coverage of Art Center Sarasota’s prestigious Vice & Virtue exhibition.

Their article discusses the themes of the show and includes my work as part of the visual coverage. You can read it here:

👉 Read the WGCU Arts article ↗

✨ A Moment of Gratitude

This recognition came as a wonderful surprise. Vice & Virtue is Art Center Sarasota’s most prestigious annual juried exhibition, bringing together powerful and diverse artistic voices from across the region.

To have Where the Birds Waited included in both the physical exhibition and in WGCU’s media coverage is deeply meaningful. Moments like this remind me how art travels beyond the studio, taking on a life of its own.

🖼️ About the Exhibition

Curated by Jessica Todd — a curator, artist, and writer dedicated to fostering creative infrastructures and advancing equity, access, and inclusion in the arts — the exhibition asks viewers to reexamine the shifting boundary between moral, amoral, and immoral.

WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall wrote:

“‘Vice & Virtue’ is the title that Art Center Sarasota gave to its annual juried regional show, which is the Center’s most prestigious juried exhibition.”

And in highlighting the works included, the article notes:

“‘Vice & Virtue’ includes Aranka Fazekas' oil on canvas ‘Where the Birds Waited’ (2025).”

The inclusion of this piece alongside so many compelling artworks is an honor I hold with immense gratitude.

🌸 Behind the Painting: Where the Birds Waited

This painting blends figurative abstraction with botanical symbolism, weaving together softness, intuition, and transformation.

The birds — suspended in a moment of quiet presence — symbolize waiting, transition, and messages between the seen and unseen. The central figure, eyes closed, exists in a space between inner calm and the mysteries of the natural world.

Where the Birds Waited is one of the pieces closest to my heart, and seeing it recognized in this context brings me great joy.

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Thank you for sharing this artistic journey with me. Your support truly means the world.

— Aranka