As the warmer weather finally arrives on the North Shore, the community is invited to enjoy a spring art exhibit by the Setauket Artists at the historic Deepwells Mansion in St. James. The show opens this Sunday, May 16 with a reception from 1 to 4 p.m.
“The Setauket Artists are thrilled to be invited back to Deepwells,” said the group’s president Irene Ruddock. “We are looking forward to taking a deep and grateful breath for the wonderful opportunity to exhibit our paintings.”
Participating artists include Ross Barbera, Shain Bard, Ron Becker, Joan Bloom, Kyle Blumenthal, Sheila Breck, Joyce Bressler, Renee Caine, Al Candia, Gail L. Chase, Anthony Davis, Bart DeCeglie, Julie Doczi, William A. Dodge, Paul J. Edelson, Marge Governale, William Graf, Melissa Imossi, Anne Katz, Flo Kemp, Karen Kemp, Joanne Liff, John Mansueto, Celeste Mauro, Judith Mausner, Lorraine McCormick, Jane McGraw Teubner, Eleanor Meier, Fred Mendelsohn, Muriel Musarra, Paula Pelletier, Russell Pulick, Jessica Randall, Cathy Rezin, Joan Rockwell, Robert Roehrig, Irene Ruddock, Oscar Santiago, Carole Link Scinta, Barbara Jeanne Siegel, Angela Stratton, Susan Trawick, Marie Lourdes Velez, Marlene Weinstein, Ellen Winter and Patricia Yantz.
According to Ms. Ruddock, the art group has planned several special events in conjunction with the exhibit.
“This year, we have some private artist studios upstairs which is exciting! Artists such as Al Candia, Fred Mendelsohn, and Rob Roehrig are exhibiting additional paintings as well as joining us in the show,” she said.
In addition there will be a gift shop featuring pottery by Russell Pulick and jewelry by Jessica Randall and Ross Barbera. Smaller works, cards, and books written by the artists will also be available and three paintings will be raffled off.
“We welcome the public to the opening reception on Sunday, May 16 to enjoy some light refreshments, view the paintings, meet the artists and to stroll the beautiful grounds of Deepwells Mansion,” added Ms. Ruddock.
The Setauket Artists’ Spring Art Exhibit will be held at Deepwells Mansion, 2 Taylor Lane, St. James from May 16 to June 6. Gallery hours are Wednesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday. Visit www.setauketartists.com for additional exhibit events. COVID restrictions apply. For more information, call 631-365-1312 or email [email protected].
It’s time to celebrate the best of the best. This Saturday, the Smithtown Township Arts Council opens its annual Winner’s Fine Art Showcase at the Mills Pond Gallery in St. James. The show will highlight the talents of seven artists who were prize winners in the gallery’s 2019 and 2020 juried exhibitions.
It is a show that Allison Cruz, Executive Director of the Mills Pond Gallery, looks forward to every year.
“I always love the Winners Showcase! It gives us an opportunity to enjoy a larger body of work from these talented prize winning artists,” she said.
‘For My Mother’ by Caryn Coville
“For the artists, it is an excellent opportunity to share work with gallery visitors that they either haven’t shown or maybe was not selected in recent juried exhibitions. For me, this is an opportunity to find out more about the artists … maybe find out that they work in different mediums or styles other than those exhibited in our shows. It is always an adventure!”
This year’s Winners Showcase features artists from Long Island as well as Idaho, Buffalo, Maine and New York City.
“The out of town artists will show only a few works in this show … we could not expect them to pack and ship many pieces to the gallery,” explained Cruz. “We are grateful for their participation and the opportunity to see what artists across the country are creating! The public can explore a larger body of their work on our website.”
Participating artists and the juried exhibits they were in are: Ron Becker (Deer Park) “Celebrating Creativity”; Caryn Coville (Greenvale) “Hand Drawn”; Lupe Galván (Idaho) “Hand Drawn”; Yuke Li (New York) “Transformations: Figures of Our Other Selves”; Joseph A. Miller (Buffalo) “Contemporary Realism”; Holden Willard (Maine) “Transformations: Figures of Our Other Selves”; and Patty Yantz (Setauket)“Water, Water Everywhere.”
Cruz invites the public to come see this amazing exhibit. “There is nothing like standing in front of these original works of art … seeing the brushstrokes … and feeling the passions and the messages in their pieces. Enjoy the exhibit and experience Art’s capacity to bring joy and hope in challenging times.”
Mills Pond Gallery, 660 Route 25A, St. James presents the Winners Fine Art Showcase from May 8 to June 6. Gallery hours are Wednesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and weekends from noon to 4 p.m. Social distancing and the use of masks is required and limited numbers of visitors (25) are allowed in the gallery at one time (5 per gallery room). Admission to the gallery is always free.
For more information, call 631-862-6575 or visit www.millspondgallery.org.
The Heckscher Museum in Huntington has announced the top prizewinners for its student exhibition, Long Island’s Best: Young Artists. This edition marks 25 years of celebrating young artists across Suffolk and Nassau Counties. More than 300 student submissions, representing more than 50 schools across Long Island participated. Jurors chose 83 works of art for exhibition. The following students were awarded the top four prizes:
‘Cultivating the Mustard’ by Keren Dial
Celebrate Achievement Best in Show
Keren Dial, Valley Stream South High School, Grade 11 for Cultivating the Mustard, colored pencil.
Second Place, Judith Sposato Memorial Prize
Ashley Park, Half Hollow Hills High School West in Dix Hills, Grade 10, for The 2021 Press, mixed media.
Third Place, The Hadley Prize
Aleena Abraham, Hicksville High School, Grade 12, for Storge, oil pastel.
Fourth Place, The Stan Brodsky Scholarship Award
Ariel Kim, Jericho Senior High School, Grade 12, for Personal Garden, oil pastel and colored pencil.
The exhibition’s anniversary milestone comes during a year where virtual visits and online classes were held in lieu of in-person programs. Despite challenges, art teachers and Museum educators worked together to give high school students meaningful experiences with exhibitions on view.Museum educators involved students through in-depth study and discussion about works of art. Each student then selected a work of art as their inspiration piece. They went on to create an original artwork and write an artist’s statement explaining their creative process.
‘Storge’ by Aleena Abraham
Jurors for the 2021 exhibition are Karli Wurzelbacher, Curator, and artist Melissa Misla, guest juror. Misla is a New York artist who holds an MFA from Queens College and is represented by Praxis Art Gallery, New York City.
“I was eager to see the students’ approaches to creating,” said Misla, adding, “Long Island’s Best can impact a young artist in a transformative way.”
Long Island’s Best: Young Artists will be on view at The Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Ave., Huntington and online at www.heckscher.org through May 23.
A virtual opening reception and awards ceremony will be held live on Instagram @heckschermuseum on May 1 from 7 to 8 p.m. For more information, call 631-380-3230.
Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown hosted a Paint Night with an Owl event on Friday, April 23. Participants gathered in the Center’s barn to paint the star of the night, Pumpkin the screech owl. The sold out socially-distanced evening was a huge success. Keep an eye out for Sweetbriar’s next Paint Night by visiting www.sweetbriarnc.org.
Gallery North, 90 North Country Road, Setauket will present its annual Wet Paint Festival from June 5 to June 13.
Now in its 17th year, this annual, outdoor event is a celebration of plein air painting. The Wet Paint Festival provides the community with the unique opportunity to observe some of Long Island’s top plein air painters as they capture the area’s historic and natural beauty. Like last year, Gallery North will slightly modify plans for the festival. In an effort to maintain both the goals of the event and continued social distancing guidelines, the Gallery invites participating artists to create works in public or in solitude during the week of the festival.
Gallery staff will also visit featured locations to arrange a few, optional recorded “virtual visits.” Participating artists will have the option (not required) to work with staff to record a discussion of their process or an informal interview. These “virtual visits” will then be posted on social media and on Gallery North’s website to both promote the event and to allow the public to understand and experience the process of plein air painting.
All participating artists will be featured in a pop-up exhibition at the Studio at Gallery North on June 18 from 3 to 7 p.m. The public is invited to attend the exhibition in person in small groups. Artists will be on hand from 5 to 7 p.m outside the Studio in Gallery North’s courtyard, to discuss their work, their experiences, and their approach, answering questions from the public.
Registration is required for the artists participating in the festival. The exhibition will be free and open to the public. For more information visit www.gallerynorth.org.
The Art League of Long Island in Dix Hills recently announced the winners of its 14th annual “Go APE” Advanced Placement Student Exhibition which features 2-D and 3-D works by 124 students from 37 Long Island High Schools. Award-winning artist, artist community organizer, and the Art League Program Manager Andrea Lawl Manning selected award of excellence winners and honorable mentions.
“The Go APE exhibition is one of our most exciting exhibitions every year,” said Manning. “The strength of the work in this exhibition made the jurying process incredibly difficult. The last year pokes its way into this show as a whole, and certainly into the pieces of our winners. Ideas about life, loneliness and isolation, cultural and social issues weave into these works. These evocative, thought provoking, and conceptually mature pieces are bolstered by achievement in technique, and skillful manipulation of medium. There is an authenticity, a boldness, and an honesty in the works of these young artists. Through these works we see a complicated world through their eyes,” she added.
The following students have been selected for awards:
Awards of Excellence:
◆ Kristine Zhou, Syosset High School, Caged, colored pencil and white tape on white paper
◆ Keren Dial, Valley Stream South High School, Cultivating the Mustard, colored pencil
◆ Jordan Brand, Baldwin HS, Illusion is Illumination, acrylic on watercolor paper
◆ Sarah Hauk, Sayville High School, White Wash, acrylic painting
◆ Emma Romano, Oceanside High School, Cultural Cleanse, photography
◆ Kathryn Yi, Jericho High School, Connection, pencil drawing
◆ Aleena Abraham, Hicksville High School, Tenderness, oil on canvas
Honorable Mentions:
◆ Angela Jang, Syosset High School, Dental Repair, colored pencil, foam core and rubber bands
◆ Kayla Timpanaro, Earl L. Vandermeulen High School, Things We Left Behind, acrylic and ink
◆ Ava Fama, Plainedge High School, The Curtains, acrylic on canvas
◆ Teddy Angelopoulos, Long Beach High School, Skulls, mixed media
◆ Ethan Koenig, Northport High School, Emptied, 3D computer modeling
◆ Alyssa Paino, H. Frank Carey High School, Too Much Pressure, oil pastel
◆ Eleanor Dexter, Mount Sinai High School, Summer’s Sanctuary, watercolor and fine liners
The virtual exhibit close date has been extended to April 9 and is on view at the Art League’s website at www.artleagueli.org.The virtual gallery format allows the viewer to “stroll the gallery” in the virtual rooms, or view the artworks online in an “at a glance” format.
Abstract art invites an audience to use its imagination and interpret meaning.
Gallery North’s newest exhibit, Laminar Rituals, celebrates the creation and explores the impact of mark making and non-objective art through the works of artists Sue Contessa of St. James and Anne Raymond of East Hampton. The show opens today, April 8.
Featuring Contessa’s acrylic paintings and Raymond’s monotypes and oil paintings, the title of the exhibit refers to their artistic styles, which incorporate transparent or translucent layers of paint that laminate, protect, and enhance their marks and brushstrokes.
“Both artists really work in a very intuitive manner … Sue’s work is really about the experience the viewer has in front of the [art]. Anne is much more interested in transient qualities we find around ourselves — things like change in weather patterns, changes in light over the course of the day … trying to capture those fleeting moments around us,” said Gallery North Executive Director Ned Puchner. “I think when put together, this exhibit is really presenting records of our experience out in the world.”
Rather than seeking inspiration from outside sources, Contessa finds meaning in the methodology of crafting her art. She uses acrylic paint and occasionally graphite pencil to build marks on the canvas. This technique creates a perceived visual depth to her paintings.
“The work is about repetition … The paintings are more about formal art issues, and the repetition allows for that form of meditation that I always hope will happen. I just have to trust my process. I tend to work rather thinly and transparently, so you are always seeing something from underneath, which impacts each layer,” said Contessa.
For Raymond, the development of her palette is an essential part of her creative process. “I work from a palette based on what I feel like at the time. If I don’t like it, I completely change it,” she said. “I float back and forth between doing monotypes and painting. I think this helps me stay fresh.”
Raymond uses plexiglass plates for her monotypes, making unique single prints with oil-based, pigment-rich, lithography inks. Unlike oil paint, the inks dry fairly quickly so Raymond is able to produce a few in a single session.
The process of working in these mediums is different, but its influences are largely the same. Her art, although abstract, is impacted by the natural world.
“Almost all of my work has reference to landscape, seascape, or sky. I feel really lucky. The beauty of Long Island is my muse,” Raymond said.
Classically trained, Contessa and Raymond each studied art in college and then attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City. They worked in traditional, realistic mediums like figure drawing and still life before becoming abstract artists.
After taking classes at the Art League of Long Island in Dix Hills, Contessa was asked to teach figure and basic drawing classes there.
“I have a background in realistic painting, but it wasn’t satisfying for me. It wasn’t what I wanted to paint. I wanted to paint something that didn’t exist before,” Contessa said. “When you create an [abstract] painting, it is something that you created. The reason for doing it in the first place is that I don’t know what it’s going to look like.”
Raymond worked as an illustrator, for a newspaper, and in the travel industry before fully transitioning to a career as an abstract artist. “When I was studying, I did a lot of live drawing … I appreciate the skill, but it was not exciting in the way that working abstractly is. While working as an illustrator, I was already doing abstracts … I think it is creatively engaging to invite surprise into your process,” she said.
Their complementary mindsets about composing abstract art is part of what initially inspired Puchner to pair their art for an exhibit. “I saw common features with both of them,” he said.
It is the first show that Contessa or Raymond have done since the pandemic began. The exhibit is part of Puchner and Gallery North’s ongoing effort to introduce patrons to the work of local artists and provide the local artists with additional exhibition possibilities.
“I’m really trying to present more artists and give more artists more opportunities to show. I have fun trying to create these pairings and expose our audience to more local artists,” Puchner added.
Gallery North, 90 North Country Road, Setauket presents Laminar Rituals through May 16. The exhibit will be open to the public during the gallery’s normal hours, Wednesdays to Saturdays from 11 a.m to 5 p.m., and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. All onsite events are socially distanced and masks are mandatory for entry.
In conjunction with the exhibit, Raymond will lead a monotype workshop for a class of up to six people at the Studio at Gallery North on April 10 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Contessa and Raymond will participate in a Virtual ArTalk on April 24, from 6 to 8 p.m.
For more information, to register for these programs, or to learn more about Laminar Rituals and other upcoming exhibits, visit www.gallerynorth.org or call 631-751-2676.
The Reboli Center for Art and History, 64 Main St., Stony Brook is inviting entries from now until April 21 for a unique fundraising exhibition, Miniatures to Make a Maximum Impact! All participating artists will have their artwork exhibited in the Reboli Design Shop throughout the month of May. “Miniature art has been venerated throughout history, and today there are Miniature Art Societies around the world. The delicate beauty and refinement of these works can be truly amazing. Now we’re asking contemporary artists of all styles to “paint small” to help support our center and programs in a major way,” said Lois Reboli, a founder of the Reboli Center and the wife of the late artist Joseph Reboli.
“One free canvas will be given to each participant to create for our cause. All entries will be considered as a donation to the Reboli Center, a 501 (c) (3) organization, and all proceeds raised from the sale of each submitted artwork for this event will be used for our free programming and exhibitions,” added Reboli.
Contributing artists may also use their own stretched canvas, linen or panel, which must not exceed 36 square inches (6 inches x 6 inches). Any painting medium is acceptable, and framing is optional. Artists are welcome to submit up to five entries. The artwork must be your own original concept and not a copy of anyone else’s copyrighted material.
To request a free canvas and application, please contact the Reboli Center at 631-751-7707 or email [email protected]. An application may also be downloaded under Events at www.rebolicenter.org
"Isiah" by Anthony Colley, Harborfields High School
"Grandpa John" by Olivia DeFeo, Northport High School
"Primary Tribal" by Kendal Eggert, Kings Park
"Conceptual Portrait 1" by Samantha Drouin, Commack High School
The Huntington Arts Council recently announced the winners of its High Arts Showcase XVII art exhibit.
HighArtsShowcase XVII is a component of the JOURNEY Arts in Education Program providing partner school 11th and 12th grade students with the opportunity to present their talents in a gallery setting through this exclusive visual art exhibition. Participating school districts include Cold Spring Harbor Jr/Sr High School, Commack High School, Harborfields High School, Huntington High School, King’s Park High School, Northport High School, Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School, and Walt Whitman High School. For more information on the artists and their work click here.
Congratulations to the following students awarded Best in Show and Honorable Mentions for their work:
Best in Show
“Isiah” by Anthony Colley, Harborfields High School
Honorable Mentions
“Conceptual Portrait 1” by Samantha Drouin, Commack High School
“Grandpa John” by Olivia DeFeo, Northport High School
“Primary Tribal” by Kendal Eggert, Kings Park
“The Son of Man” (video) by Lauren Gooding, Huntington High School
The exhibit is on view at the Huntington Arts Council’s website, www.huntingtonarts.org, through April 10.
Looking at a painting is like a window to another time — the world is frozen, just as the artist remembers it. But of course, nothing stays the same in real life, and the scenes depicted in paintings will often change as well.
With this in mind, Joshua Ruff of the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook had an interesting idea: What if they tried to return to the scenes in some of the museum’s paintings to see what they look like now?
The Mount House in Stony Brook as it stands today.
The result is Twin Peeks: Scenes Seen Twice, Paintings and Photographs, an exhibit of works from the museum’s permanent collection laid side-by-side with recent photos of their locales. The unique show opens in the Art Museum’s Main Gallery on March 19.
Pursuing this idea was the beginning of a months-long adventure for Ruff, Deputy Director, Director of Collections and Interpretations at the LIM and curator for the exhibit. After choosing more than 60 paintings to include in the show, including artwork from the museum’s coveted William Sidney Mount collection, he had to figure out what — or where — the artists were painting.
The Mount House by William Sidney Mount, 1854
“Artists didn’t leave behind GPS coordinates for their work,” he joked. “There are so many scenes in our collection that are real places, but it’s not always conveyed in the title exactly where it is. Landscapes can change dramatically. We wanted to try to get as close as we could to the vantage point of the original painting, while thinking about how artists tell a story of place.”
Using maps from the approximate time period of each piece, Google’s street view feature and some research savvy, Ruff set out with his family and a camera to get the job done. It was far from easy, though — some of the locations are now on private property, inaccessible or unidentifiable. Other abstract or impressionist pieces can offer a vague sense of place without the details required to pinpoint it. Still, he did the best he could.
“We have several examples of historical photographs of certain locations, but more than 90 percent of the photographs were speculative on our part. In some cases, we may not ever be able to crack the code of where the actual spot was,” Ruff explained.
In some cases, he had to enlist the help of some friends. The museum’s conservator, Alexander Katlan, lives part-time in New England and was able to take photos to accompany two paintings by William Trost Richards. And some of the staff at the Freeport Memorial Public Library took to the water to find a match for Charles Henry Miller’s 1885 painting, “Freeport Oyster Houses.”
The site of the Setauket Rubber Factory today at the corner of Route 25A and South Jersey Avenue.
“The oyster industry thrived in Freeport in the 1800s, and our library archives include many photographs from that time, so I knew exactly where we needed to go,” said librarian Regina Feeney.
To get the right angle for the photo, the team would need a boat. They talked with the owner of a Freeport marina in search of a way to get down the Freeport River, and were ultimately connected with bayman Danny Miller. It was a chilly November day when they set sail, but armed with old maps and a sense of humor, they got the job done. The photo was taken by Jason Velarde.
The Setauket Rubber Factory by Edward Lange;
“I really enjoy now-and-then exhibits because it gives people perspective about how things have changed over time,” Feeney said. “We were happy to make a contribution, and it was fun getting out of the building and enjoying some time on the water together. We had quite the adventure.”
The exhibit is evenly divided among geographic areas, with one third focusing on the East End, one third on the middle Island, and one third on Nassau County, New York City and New England. The paintings feature a range of medium as well, from watercolor to oil and acrylic, and span in time from the 1830s through the 1970s.
“Seeing this collection of paintings really drives home the sense of how the area has evolved — some of the subjects, like the Setauket rubber factory, are gone now. Other areas that were quiet and natural are more developed now. I hope it will be enjoyable for people of all ages to reflect on the past and consider what the future will hold,” Ruff said.
In conjunction with Twin Peeks the Victoria Costigan Gallery in the Art Museum will be home to “Artists Abroad,” a mini exhibit focused on travel and foreign landscapes.
The museum’s collection includes a small, yet compelling group of works by artists who traveled abroad between the 1860s and 1960s. American artists have always been drawn to European art and landscapes. They visited museums and copied famous works of art, and roamed cities and the countryside to paint and sketch scenes of daily life and picturesque views. Sketches in ink and watercolor quickly documented form and color, with some becoming inspiration for future works in oil.
“Generally when we do an exhibit, the focus is on America or on Long Island. But the works in this exhibit were created abroad and don’t get as many opportunities for exhibition,” said curator Jonathan Olly. “You’ll get to see things you wouldn’t usually get to see here, from the Italian countryside to an Azorian mountain or Cannes as seen from the harbor — it shifts the lens to other places and perspectives.”
“Both of these exhibits are about travel in a time where we haven’t really been able to travel — we’re all a little tired of being inside, and this celebrates the joy of going outside and exploring in a safe way,” said Ruff.
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The Long Island Museum, 1200 Route 25A, Stony Brook presents Twin Peeks: Scenes Seen Twice, Paintings and Photographs and Artists Abroad when the museum reopens for the season March 19. The exhibits run through Aug. 1. Visitors are also welcome to explore the Carriage Museum; however the History Museum will remain closed.
Hours are Friday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Physical distancing will be required and masks are mandatory. The LIM follows CDC-prescribed cleaning protocols for all buildings. Admission is $10 adults, $7 seniors, $5 students, children under six free. Tickets are available at the Carriage Museum entrance, credit cards only please; pre-registration is not required. For more information, visit longislandmuseum.org.
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