The Hamptons

Having returned earlier than expected from a jaunt to the Southern Hemisphere by way of Palm Beach and not feeling committed to sitting down and getting to work in m studio, I decided to traipse over to Sag Harbor – something that I wouldn’t consider doing in the summer.

The Merz gallery, always filled with the innovative seemed closed for renovations, so I meandered into the Grenning instead. Now, realism isn’t really my thing but this gallery has always attracted the absolute best in that field. Their winter show can’t disappoint because the taste level of this gallery is first rate and never plunges down to the syrupy. Ben Fenske, a little more impressionistic than the others, shows local views of Mashomek and Dering harbor. He’s having a solo show this coming June. Marc Dalessio is currently showing clear crisp landscapes and portraits that are really beautiful.

The Grenning gallery has now extended across the way to the Sag Harbor Fine Arts Academy complete with drawing sessions 6-9 on Wed nite and guest speakers and teachers throughout the year. My favorite work that I saw had a slightly eerie look which gives it an edge even though it’s been rendered within an inch of its life. The artist is Stephen Bauman. It’s a little reminiscent of Paul P who shows with Stephen Reich in the city. Both have a feeling of imagined or reminiscent places of the mind.

On my way back to Southampton, I stopped in to see my friend Lynn at Marc Borghi Fine Arts in Bridgehampton Main Street. Most of the gallery has been given over to the slightly overlooked Vita Petersen (B. 1915). She was a pupil of the great Hans Hoffman, showed at Betty Parsons and of course called Pollack a friend. Anyways her non-objective paintings done in oil stick pastel and paint are luminous and wonderful, as are a lot of the mid century collection at Marc Borghi. What stands out in my mind from this trip is how lucky we are to have the caliber of galleries that we do out here in the Hamptons. These two exemplify the very best.
– DF

Dora Frost is featured in TheHamptons.com Fine Art Gallery and has been working directly from nature on over size pastels of peonies. She is working on these in her studio in Manhattan. Simultaneously, in her studio on Long Island, she is working on a narrative installation revolving around Proust’s character, the Duchesse DeGuarmantes. Ms. Frost believes that for her, living inside of two or three completely different bodies of work allows for a sense freedom, eliminating the controlled idea of the limiting style identification/personality implicit in being identified with predominately one thing…beckoning in once again the thingness of the made object. To see how her art has evovled please have a look at Dora’s past exhibit which debuted with TheHamptons.com in 1995.