PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — R2-D2, RoboCop and The Terminator may just be robots to us, but for a group of artists out of St. Pete, they’re an inspiration.
This year they put together a special exhibit for the Florida State Fair called, The St. Pete Robot Exchange.
It features works from 30 different artists, and some of them even have names that sound like robots, like Zulu and Auraileus.
“I met Zulu and he’s like, ‘you paint robots, I want to make an art show about robots,’ and I think that was 2012, we decided to put on the first St. Pete Robot Exchange,” said Auraileus.
A decade later, they are making their first appearance at the Florida State Fair.
“It’s incredible to have this opportunity to bring the Robot Exchange to the state fair; at this level, we get to have an audience that we’ve never seen before, that the numbers are insane, it’s almost a million people,” said Zulu Painter.
From paintings to sculptures to quilts, the Robot Exchange has a lot of moving parts.
“As a kid, robots always fascinated me; it was like, ‘how do you get this life out of this piece of metal,’ and ever since then, I’ve just been super enthusiastic about robots,” said Zulu.
They even have a Robot Lounge in case C3PO or Johnny 5 decides to show up.
“It's kind of an area for the robots to hang out, get repairs if they need it,” said Auraileus.
Remember, if you choose to bring home a bot, you’re also most likely supporting a local artist.
