Tampa firm turns scrap into sculpture — with prices from $600 to a projected $100K

It takes persistence to find the road to Modern Art Creations — a twisty, narrow strip of asphalt that winds behind the apartment complexes and chain restaurants off North Dale Mabry Highway in one of Carrollwood’s grittier commercial corridors. 

The building’s weathered, wooden exterior blends in with the welding shops, mechanics garages and beige metal industrial buildings that line the road, their parking lots crowded by the rusting exoskeletons of broken-down cars instead of customers. 

Once you arrive, though, it’s impossible to miss. A monstrous, metal fire ant scales the building at 9430 Lazy Lane — daring visitors to step inside. 

There, the industrial wasteland outside gives way to a sleek, carefully-arranged gallery. Under soft white lights, discarded piles of car parts, machine gears and household hardware have been alchemized into soaring eagles, animals, human figures and abstract forms. The base of an old bathroom vanity light becomes a ceremonial tribal mask. A butterfly emerges from a metal frame. A portrait assembled entirely from circles contains springs, cogs, saw blades and what was once a coffee grinder. 

Part of this tucked-away treasure trove of stuff stems from Tampa Mobile Welding, where workers fabricate staircases and handrails, work on broken Tesla motors and carry out projects for commercial clients. That industrial work gave rise to Tampa Bay’s newest art gallery — and it remains central to a business model its founders hope will distinguish Modern Art Creations in a crowded and competitive Tampa Bay arts scene. 

“We’re not just a gallery,” says Felipe Lopez, the company’s director of art. “We are a fabrication company. We have our own shop and we fabricate our own artwork."

The ultimate goal, Lopez says, is to build an art company that sells its unique works — which range in cost from $600 to an expected $100,000 — to a bevy of commercial customers nationwide. 

Tampa Mobile Welding partners Kostyantyn Fedorenko and Christian Stefko founded Modern Art Creations, or MAC. The leaders each have lanes, Lopez says.

“I’m more focused on the artistic expression, the creation of the artwork,” Lopez says. “Kostyantyn is in the business, Christian is in the technical side, and I’m more in the promotion of the gallery and the artistic side — the crazy ideas.”

Sculpt success 

MAC opened in February after a 2.5-year build-up phase. The partners have since set their sights on marketing the gallery, recruiting local artists and pursuing collectors and commercial projects. 

The gallery has already produced more than 150 original works, according to its website. Pieces range from $600 for a small, flowing sculpture called “Eternal Flame” to “Hormiga Roja,” a 12-foot-long red ant priced at $25,000. A large horse sculpture the team hopes to complete would require a client and a budget approaching $100,000, Lopez says.

The company’s first major collection, “Black and Gold,” was conceived as a demonstration of its range. The team produced pieces influenced by minimalism, abstraction, cubism and surrealism, then tied them together through a black-and-gold color palette.

The collection’s striking centerpiece, “Eagle,” was the first sculpture designed jointly by Lopez, Stefko and Fedorenko. Built largely from automotive parts and listed for nearly $17,000, the piece depicts an eagle taking flight, wings outstretched and feathers taut as it ascends into the sky with a fish in its talons. 

“It was Kostyantyn’s inspiration about freedom — flying, freedom and what it represents,” Lopez says. 

The sculpture required about six weeks of work among welders, fabricators, artists and designers. The team hand-cut individual pieces with a plasma cutter and engineered the frame so the bird could be supported from a relatively small point at its base — the doomed fish’s tail. 

The gallery also displays paintings and mixed-media work, including pieces by Tampa-area artist and muralist Marvin Vega. MAC keeps its roster of represented artists small and does not promise artists space or sales unless it believes it can actively promote their work, he says. They leave it up to customers to decide which artists they want to work with on commissioned pieces. 

Vega, a Nicaraguan-born contemporary artist, created three pieces currently on display at MAC, and says he sees a bright future ahead for the joint venture. 

“The artwork is not yet complete until the public sees it and experiences what is created,” Vega says in a Facebook post. “(It's a) new beginning with so much more to come.”

Scale up

But selling fine art is difficult — particularly when consumers and businesses are cautious about discretionary spending. 

“The reality is, it’s been really, really slow,” Lopez says. “We still have to do a lot of building, make a lot of connections.” 

Those connections are at the heart of MAC’s strategy. Rather than relying solely on walk-in collectors, the company is courting architects, builders, interior designers, developers, landscapers and hospitality businesses that can incorporate custom sculptures into larger projects.

Commercial clients already make up an important part of the company’s prospective market, Lopez said. MAC can create a sculptural sign for a business, design a centerpiece for a hotel or office lobby, or work with a homeowner and interior designer to develop art around a property’s architecture. And because the workshop is attached to the gallery, the team can participate early in a construction or renovation project, adjusting a sculpture’s scale, materials and finish to suit its setting.

Photo by Mark Wemple

The gallery is also beginning to extend its reach beyond the warehouses of Lazy Lane. Its “Iron Dragon,” built from industrial metal and finished in black and gold, is on display at the JW Marriott Tampa Water Street. Another work, “Fragment of Self,” is being shown at the Epicurean Hotel. Both installations are part of the lead-up to Art Fair Tampa, scheduled for Oct. 15 through 18 at the Tampa Convention Center.

“When people see it in person, they understand something different is being built here,” Lopez says. We expect in one year to be a national company. We want installations all across the United States.”

Forged in friendship

Lopez first befriended Stefko long before the gallery existed. The two met in the art show circuit about six or seven years ago and began working for a different Tampa company producing and restoring metal sculptures. The work was stable, but the company was more concerned with production than precision, Lopez says. The two men began itching to do “something bigger” with their skills. 

Stefko was the first to leave and decided to launch his own business with Fedorenko — Tampa Mobile Welding. Within a year of launching Tampa Mobile Welding the two men invited Lopez to join them, forging metal structures and performing other fabrication jobs. Together, they developed Modern Art Creations.

“They told me, ‘Why don’t you do something bigger? Why don’t you work with us?’” Lopez recalled. “We have the system. We’ve got the machines. We have a lot of ideas and you have the talent.”

For Lopez, it was another opportunity to rebuild his future after some challenges in his recent past. 

Start from scrap

Raised in Cali, Colombia, Lopez began experimenting with metal work early on. His father was a visual artist who primarily worked with metal, he says, while his mother made jewelry. 

He studied industrial design at the Academia de Dibujo Profesional in Colombia, then took something of a pivot: He launched his own manufacturing company, making parts and accessories for motorcycles and other Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha and Harley-Davidson vehicles. The work was lucrative, but stressful, he says. 

“It was way too much responsibility to have all these families depending on you for their jobs and then what you’re making, if you make a mistake or something goes wrong with a part you’re putting people at risk,” Lopez says. “I was needing a way to relieve all this stress, and then I saw we had all these piles of scrap metal so I started making things out of them again. Little things for clients or just to get out of my head and try to relax.”

By his mid-20s, Lopez had built his reputation as a successful business owner and precision artist, recycling discarded scrap into works of art for business owners and private collectors. 

But in 2013, as Nicolás Maduro rose to power in neighboring Venezuela, the Colombian economy collapsed, he says, and his business went with it. He lost his home, his properties, his investments and his sense of stability in his home country, Lopez says. By December 2019, with little more than a single bag of clothing, he moved to Tampa to live with his brother and wash dishes in his sushi restaurant, hoping to start again. 

“I was really depressed,” Lopez says. “But, I told myself if I could do it once, I can do it twice. I can do it three times. I can do it four times. As long as I don’t let the problem make me fall down forever, I can build everything from scrap again.”