Five Deuces Galleria - The Big White Building
The Big White Building - Five Deuces Galleria
Behind a brewery parking lot in the Warehouse Arts District, twenty-two artists work under one roof — and once a month, their landlord-gallery hangs a hundred works by fifty of their neighbors.
The directions locals give are the honest ones: it's the big white building at the back of the 3 Daughters Brewing parking lot. Five Deuces Galleria, at 2101 3rd Avenue South, doesn't announce itself with Beach Drive polish — you find it the Warehouse Arts District way, by knowing it's there, or by wandering off the brewery patio with a beer-loosened curiosity and discovering an entire artist colony next door. Even the name plays the neighborhood's numbers: a poker hand of deuces (the galleria's own handle spells it five22222) dealt a block from the storied Deuces corridor of 22nd Street South.
Inside the white walls is one of the district's purest expressions of the studios-plus-gallery model: twenty-two working artist studios wrapped around a main exhibition space, run by a resident team that has turned hospitality into curriculum.
Twenty-Two Studios, Every Medium
The resident roster reads like a core sample of the district. Geoffrey Baris — profiled travelers may recognize the name from our downtown coverage of his ArtLofts counterpart Brian James — brings thirty-plus years as a fashion photographer for major retailers, catalogs, magazines, and album covers, now running a portrait studio and gallery on site. Julie, a self-taught abstract painter working in sensual blacks and whites, doubles as co-curator of the building's exhibitions. Kostar (Brian Kostar) makes what he winningly calls "art for the beautifully weird" — pun-laden pop-culture mashups threaded with Florida wildlife, built on upcycled frames and repurposed materials — and live-paints in his studio Wednesday through Saturday, meaning visitors can reliably watch work being made. Steve, a Philadelphia fine-carpentry teacher turned full-time St. Pete resident, crafts custom wood furniture; photographer Ted VanCleave holds Studio 1. The full spectrum — painting, photography, mixed media, woodcraft, and beyond — works these halls, and most studios open by appointment between the big nights.
The big night, of course, is Second Saturday. Five Deuces is a fixture of the ArtWalk circuit, throwing open all twenty-two studios from 5 to 9 p.m. — and the building's location makes it arguably the best-lubricated stop on the route, with 3 Daughters' taproom serving as unofficial anteroom.
The Hundred-Work Hang
What has distinguished Five Deuces from the district's other studio buildings is its main gallery program: monthly guest exhibits that hang, by the galleria's own count, 100-plus original works by 50-plus local artists per show — themed group exhibitions refreshed every month, with open calls circulated through its newsletter and social channels. For working artists across Tampa Bay, those calls have functioned as one of the region's most accessible recurring opportunities to show and sell; for visitors, the promise is simple: the walls are never the same twice. Reviews consistently credit the resident team — Julie and Geoffrey are named again and again — with an inclusive, collector-welcoming atmosphere, and the operation is confident enough in its formula that it side-hustles as a consultancy, coaching other galleries and artists on how to host successful exhibits.
One important status note for readers and artists alike: the galleria's own exhibition page billed its third annual holiday "Small Works" show as its final guest art exhibit — language that suggests the monthly guest-show program, at least in its familiar form, may be winding down or evolving. The studios and Second Saturday openings continue; what replaces the guest-exhibit calendar is worth watching. Artists hunting calls, and collectors who've made the monthly pilgrimage, should check the galleria's channels for the current state of play.
The Model, and the Moment
Five Deuces belongs to the Warehouse District's founding generation of adaptive reuse — a warehouse turned honeycomb, in the same family as the ArtsXchange (whose 28 studios sit a few blocks south) but privately run, scrappier, and stitched into the brewery-district social fabric in a way the institutional campuses aren't. Its formula — affordable studios subsidized by community, exhibitions democratized by open calls, foot traffic borrowed from beer — is the district's economy in miniature. If its guest-exhibit era is indeed closing, that's a small bellwether worth noting in a district navigating rising values and changing hands; if it's merely regrouping, the big white building has earned the benefit of the doubt several times over.
Either way, the standing advice holds: go on a Second Saturday, start at the brewery or end there, and knock on the open doors. Twenty-two artists are working behind them, and at least one — beautifully weird, brush in hand — will be painting when you walk in.
Visit: Five Deuces Galleria, 2101 3rd Ave. S. ("the big white building" behind 3 Daughters Brewing), St. Petersburg, Warehouse Arts District. Studios open Second Saturday ArtWalk, 5–9 p.m., and by appointment; check current exhibition status online. Information: FiveDeucesGalleria.com or fivedeucesgalleria@gmail.com.
Sources: Five Deuces Galleria materials and artist pages; St. Petersburg Arts Alliance directory; TripAdvisor and public reviews.
