The Art Scene

(9/2/2008)

An Inside Job At Walk Tall Gallery
    Howard Lazar left his career in business in New York City to explore the blank canvas and himself through painting. The results will be on view at the Walk Tall Gallery in East Hampton in “Journey In,” which opens today and can be seen through Sept. 18.

    “The worlds he creates are rough scenes . . . a figure loosely outlined or a clock with incomplete numbers,” which invite the viewer to “bring our own world of experience” to the paintings to ignite inner explorations, a release said.

    Mr. Lazar’s work shows traces of those he has been influenced by: Munch, Bacon, and Freud. His studies in formal psychology and spiritual psychology are a part of his process of self-discovery through art. This is his first solo exhibit.

    An R.S.V.P.-only reception for the artist is scheduled for Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Leon Delivers At Solar Gallery
    Riffing on a well-known ad campaign by U.P.S., the Solar Gallery in East Hampton, which specializes in emerging Latin American artists, will deliver “What Can Brown Do for You?” The show is curated by the gallery’s founder, Esperanza Leon.

    The exhibit will explore perceptions, conceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes of Latin American immigrants in the United States. Sheila Breck’s series of paintings “Shadow Economy” depicts immigrants gathering at a Farmingville 7-Eleven to look for work. Santiago Garza, a New York City-based photographer, reveals what he calls “Hispanicity” in his images of Latinos in this country. Christa Maiwald of East Hampton will exhibit embroidered works with images of hybrid creatures and notable Latino activists woven into them.

    A mixed-media artist, Esperanza Mayobre, who lives and works in Brooklyn, invents stories to communicate themes ranging from birth and death to poverty and immigration. Dulce Pinzon’s photographs document Mexican immigrant workers in New York City who withstand “extreme conditions of labor” in order to help their families to survive and prosper.

    Instead of car hoods a la Richard Prince, Michael Pribich’s mixed-media works on paper focus on kitchen exhaust hoods that vent smoke from grills in commercial kitchens staffed mostly by immigrant workers.

    Aurelio Torres, who lives and works in East Hampton and New York City, continues in his paintings and sculptures the legacy of his father, Horacio Torres, and his grandfather Joaquin Torres-Garcia, who was born in 1872 and who founded the School of the South movement and changed the face of Latin American art. His latest work portrays the figure of the gardener or landscaper, in particular “those who clear our gardens and streets with leaf blowers.”

    The show can be seen through Nov. 3.

Celadon Gallery’s Object Lessons
    Stephen Heywood finds his inspiration for his ceramic art in the mechanical and industrial world, often focusing on utilitarian buildings such as silos and water towers that are used for containment. Brian Jensen, a teacher at Utah Valley State College and a ceramics studio manager at Brigham Young University, refers to architectural styles and elements of antique furniture in his work. Lai Montesca has said that a person could hold one of her pots and “know more about me in that instant than a page of words could ever convey.”

    “Objects,” a show opening tomorrow at the Celadon Gallery in Water Mill, will feature works by the three ceramicists. A reception for them will be held on Oct. 5, the day the show closes, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. More information on the exhibit can be found at hamptons clayart.org.

Autumn Perspectives At Chrysalis Gallery
    In an homage, perhaps, to the crisp morning air, the Chrysalis Gallery in Southampton has selected a group of artists to convey “Autumn Light” in its next exhibit, which will open today. A reception for the artists is scheduled for Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m.

    Inspired by Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth, Daniel Pollera, who grew up on Long Island, brings a crisp photographic quality to his landscapes. Laureen Hylka “strives to paint the luminosity, spontaneity, and design” of nature.

    Jennifer Li lived in New York City for nearly 20 years before decamping to the mountains of Montana. Her work has been described as beautiful yet touched with weirdness. Michelle Mott, a contemporary realist, has kept her eye on the barns and landscapes of the East End with a process in which she sketches on site and then uses thin layers of paint. She completes her pieces on wood panel fabrications.

    The show can be seen through Sept. 20.

Braun’s Point of View
    Bobbie Braun, a Bridgehampton artist and a member of the Crazy Monkey Gallery in Amagansett, will have an exhibit of her landscape paintings at Pierre’s restaurant in Bridgehampton. She has a background in hand-crafted fine metal and gem jewelry and had a long career in the interior design world.

    In “Point of View,” opening on Wednesday with a reception on Sept. 13 from 3 to 6 p.m., Ms. Braun’s paintings, though depicting recognizable South Fork vistas, have the spontaneity of Abstract Impressionism. “Her work is barely tethered by land and explores the relationship between clouds and their ethereal effect upon the earth,” according to a statement from the artist.

    The exhibit will be on view through Oct. 10. Images of Ms. Braun’s work can be seen at her Web site, bobbiebraun. com.

Neon Shiva In Southampton
    The late Robert Long, who was an art critic for The Star, described Marilyn Stevenson’s photographs as appearing like “a neon Shiva.” The artist’s photographic light drawings are made through “small gestural movements” as she manipulates her camera like a drawing tool. Light, energy, movement, abstract forms, and color are rendered in the painterly images she shoots.

    The photographer’s work will be on exhibit at the Southampton Cultural Center beginning Tuesday and running through Sept. 21. A brunch reception will be held on Sept. 14 at 11:30 a.m.

Hats Off to Hasegawa
    Helen Harrison has written that Yuka Hasegawa is a close observer of life whose work shows a love of paint for its own sake. Ms. Hasegawa’s paintings can be viewed at the Chrysalis Gallery in Southampton until Sept. 15.

    Fresh off two solo shows, one in Tokyo and another in Philadelphia, the artist melds Eastern and Western traditions in her work, although she breaks free from the Japanese norm through her unstructured style and use of color.

    Ms. Hasegawa, who lives in New York City and on the East End, is originally from Kyoto, Japan, and had a long career as a fashion designer of couture hats and clothing. She won a Milli Award in 2006 at the Millinery Designer of the Year Awards.

    More information about the artist is available at her Web site, yukany.com.

A Legacy Continues
    Amy Ernst, a collagist, painter, and printmaker, will have a solo show at the Flomenhaft Gallery on West 27th Street in New York City, which begins with a reception for the artist next Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m.

    The artist, who carries on the legacy of her father, the abstract painter Jimmy Ernst, and her grandfather, the surrealist painter Max Ernst, deftly explores various styles and textures in her work — placing the modern up against the classical in a kind of collision that coaxes “the unconscious into reality.”

    Ms. Ernst believes in “two states of mind, one is dream” and the other “reality. Although these states appear to be contradictory by nature, they merge and become an absolute.” This absolute is depicted in her canvases, several of which have been sewn back to back, collaged, and painted on both sides.

    The artist’s father and her mother, Dallas Ernst, lived and worked in East Hampton and for years held an annual Thanksgiving Day potluck for artists, actors, and writers such as Ibram Lassaw, Willem de Kooning, Saul Steinberg, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Edward Albee, Lee Krasner, Larry Rivers, and Betty Friedan.

    The show is called “Places I Have Never Been” and can be seen through Oct. 18.