The Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs will open two exhibitions on Saturday. "As Above, So Below," organized by Barry Schwabsky, an art critic and poet, will feature the work of Hannah Beerman and Rafael Vega in the Little Barn, while "Eric Brown: The Particulars of Rapture," will be installed in the Little Gallery.
According to the center, both Ms. Beerman and Mr. Vega seek to find expansive possibilities for what a painting can be by opening up the space behind or in front of their picture planes.
Mr. Vega has been known to attack the surface of the painting, scratching or carving into it, sometimes causing bits of the Masonite support to chip off. In an essay on Mr. Vega's work, Mr. Schwabsky observes that unlike Lucio Fontana, who used to slash his canvases in a simple, "elegant" gesture, Mr. Vega's attack is aggressive and rough.
Ms. Beerman, by contrast, builds up her surfaces with a variety of materials: photographs, cake glitter, chip clips, filament, beads, seashells, fabric, even helium balloons, all of which push the painting into three dimensions.
For Mr. Brown, while quarantining in Amagansett during the early months of the pandemic, painting became a daily practice, a visual diary and meditative process of repeating marks.
While the paintings suggest textiles, they are not facsimiles of woven fabric, not do they intend to be. The physicality of the marks become the textile; the surfaces are "woven" with paint. Straightforward and unadorned, the paintings reflect the imperfect calligraphy of the artist's hand.
A reception for Mr. Brown will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. on Saturday; one for Ms. Beerman and Mr. Vega is set for 5 to 7. Both exhibitions will continue through Aug. 21.
