The Art Scene: 01.16.14
New at the Drawing Room
An exhibition of drawings by Christine Hiebert and sculpture by Diane Mayo opens tomorrow at the Drawing Room in East Hampton, where it will remain on view through March 10. Ms. Hiebert has investigated the art of drawing for 25 years, using traditional and nontraditional tools to create works ranging in size from a sheet of paper to rotunda wall installations in museums. The 10 drawings in this exhibition reveal the range of her experimentation over the last 20 years.
Ms. Mayo is showing new, hand-built clay sculptures inspired by selected collage elements in the mid and late-20th-century paintings of Conrad Marca-Relli, a first-generation abstract expressionist. She transforms specific forms — crosses, biscuits, kidney shapes — into pieces unique in their architecture and glazing techniques, while engaging the themes of appropriation and homage.
A reception will be held Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.
Modern and Contemporary
“Modern and Contemporary,” a new group exhibition, opens tomorrow at Vered Gallery in East Hampton and will run through Feb. 18. The show includes works by Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, John Graham, Marsden Hartley, Man Ray, George Bellows, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Hunt Slonem, David Hockney, Ray Caesar, Adam Handler, Adam Miller, Nathan Sawaya, Boaz Vaadia, and Dean West.
Three at Ashawagh
Sarah Jaffe Turnbull, Annie Sessler, and John Todaro are exhibiting new work Saturday and Sunday at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. A reception will take place Saturday from 3 to 7 p.m.
Ms. Turnbull is a sculptor whose clay portraits, while figurative, explore shape with an eye for both organic and abstract forms. The new work reflects her expanded use of metal glazes. Best known for her gyotaku, or direct nature printing with ink and fish, Ms. Sessler will be showing new hand-embellished pieces that incorporate drawn and painted elements into her fish prints. Mr. Todaro will exhibit new work that emphasizes black-and-white or monochromatic images, a group of new abstractions, and several new collections of “miniatures” that recall 19th-century photography.
Flack at Yale
Audrey Flack, a pioneer of photorealism who has a house in East Hampton, will give a talk next Thursday at 5:30 p.m. at the Yale University Art Gallery. The talk will be followed by a performance by Ms. Flack and the History of Art Band, a bluegrass ensemble that also includes Johnny Jackpot, Adam Grimshaw, Deborah Grimshaw, David Roger Grossman, and Walter Us.
The talk and performance are presented in conjunction with the gallery’s current exhibition, “Still Life: 1970s Photorealism,” in which Ms. Flack, who earned a B.F.A. from Yale, is represented by her painting “Time to Save” (1979). The exhibition, which is on view through March 9, consists of work from the gallery’s collection by painters who took photography as their subject and sculptors who recreated the human form with uncanny accuracy.
In New York City
The work of Herbert Matter, a noted graphic designer and photographer who died in 1984, is in a solo exhibition of black-and-white photographs at Gitterman Gallery from next Thursday through March 22 in New York City. Matter and his wife, the former Mercedes Carles, had a house in East Hampton and were friends with Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Lee Krasner, among many others. A reception will be held Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m.
Margaret Garrett, who lives and works on Shelter Island, is showing lyrical, large-scale abstractions from her “Tuning Fields” series at Birnam Wood Gallery in New York. The show is on view through Feb. 15. Ms. Garrett has said of the series, “I am working with line-driven layers of color and rhythm to create loose yet formal fields of motion that are abstract and at the same time evocative of the shapes and patterns found in nature.”