Visitors to Aubrey Roemer’s cool, sizable studio, in a rented basement apartment in Montauk, are greeted with a sea of local faces painted on linen and strung from the rafters of the room. The work was originally called “The Montauk Portrait Project,” but she has since decided to call it “Leviathan,” to represent a large vessel of the sea.
Her goal was to capture at least 10 percent of the hamlet’s year-round community, roughly 400 people. At last count, on June 19, she had completed 100 pieces, and has now decided to shoot for 500.