On September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian covered Fort Myers Beach with more than 18 feet of wind-driven surge and wave action. In the process, it obliterated Paradise Tattoo’s studio. Rather than give up or relocate, founder Dawn Webb and her coterie of close-knit artists - Sam Taylor, Alia Alexander, Colin Orion and Victoria Casazza - rebuilt and reopened. Through perseverance and an unyielding passion for their craft, Webb and company restored more than a studio. They reignited their creative spirit.
The Paradise Five are exhibiting post-Ian paintings and mixed media works in the grand atrium of the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center under the title “Not Just Another Day in Paradise.” Each of the pieces on display offers a deeply personal reflection on survival, regeneration and the power of art to heal and inspire.
Witness the intersection of trauma and triumph, memory and imagination, resiliency and renewal now through Aug. 28.
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“Not Just Another Day in Paradise” features an eclectic grouping of works by artists Dawn Webb, Sam Taylor, Alia Alexander, Colin Orion and Victoria Casazza of Paradise Tattoo on Fort Myers Beach.
Dawn Webb
Webb is a Fort Myers native. She has witnessed the growth and development of Fort Myers and Fort Myers Beach since the 1970s.
She is both an acrylic painter and tattoo artist. Her work embraces the realms of emotion, memory and sound. Although she has never played an instrument, music has always been her muse. It has exercised a steady presence that echoes through her studio and stirs her soul. She maintains that music is the unseen force behind every portrait she paints.
Webb’s canvases are tributes to the artists who have lit her path and musicians whose voices have shaped her journey through joy, heartbreak and healing. “Each painting is more than a likeness; it is a conjuring of spirit, a moment suspended in color and feeling,” states Webb in the placard that accompanies her work in the exhibition.
Many of Webb’s pieces have previously appeared in the Cancer Sucks charity auction aboard the ShipRocked cruise, where she also tattoos guests from around the world beneath the pulse of live music and ocean skies.
Webb founded Paradise Tattoo on Fort Myers Beach in 2011. She regularly displayed her original paintings and prints in the lobby of the studio and she lost her entire portfolio of work in the surge that claimed it.
Paradise is the first, and only, tattoo studio to reopen on the beach in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
Webb is also one of three dozen local muralists with work included in the Fort Myers River Basin outdoor art and history museum in downtown Fort Myers. Her contribution is a portrait of Fort Myers’ first African-American settler, Nelson Tillis, and his wife, Ellen.
Samantha Taylor
A native Floridian, Samantha Taylor is known for her portrait paintings, local murals and tattoo artistry. As an avid painter specializing in oils and fluid mediums, Sam is inspired by the human form and surrealism. Her style is evocative and cinematic, drawing on elements of classic portraiture, surrealist symbolism and dreamscape environments. She finds quiet inspiration in Southwest Florida’s coastal light and natural stillness. “Whether depicting the soft hush of a twilight shore or the visceral entanglement of body and spirit, her paintings evoke a sense of suspended time,” states the placard accompanying her work. “[They’re] an invitation into a world where beauty and darkness speak the same tongue.”
As a professional tattoo artist, Taylor brings the same depth of feeling and attention to storytelling into her body art, fusing fine art technique with personal symbolism.
She has also taught painting professionally across Fort Myers and Cape Coral.
Taylor also participated in the City of Fort Myers' river basin mural project, contributing portraits of the "Father of Fort Myers," Capt. Francis Asbury Hendry and Elvis Presley, who performed twice in the historic City Auditorum.
Colin Orion
Colin Orion is a multidisciplinary artist. His mediums include charcoal, paint, photography, video, music and writing. He makes his living as a tattoo artist at Paradise Tattoo.
The placard adjoining his artwork describes his painting style as “messy, chunky, bold and deliberate contemporary Impressionism.” Ranging from portraits to the abstract, he attempts to capture and preserve the raw purity of the fleeting moment. With a focus on acceptance of outcome, no attempt is made to blend or refine the initially emerging energy.
Alia Alexander
Alia Alexander is a queer artist born and raised in Fort Myers. She has had a passion for drawing since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Growing up, she primarily enjoyed pencil sketching, illustration and character design. She later went to college for graphic design, but ultimately decided that field was not for her.
Her work today provides a peek inside her inner world, her emotions and her musings about general human strangeness. She enjoys creating in a very “stream of consciousness” sort of way, embracing the unexpected during her process.
Alia’s art ranges from bright and colorful whimsy to dark and horrific imaginings depending on the day.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.