Art Hamptons Sayre Park Bridgehampton

 Art Hamptons was a welcome respite on a blistering Friday afternoon.  The 52,000 square foot, climate controlled modular museum housed over $300,000,000.00 worth of art displayed by over 95 vetted galleries from around the world.  There was an amazing array from the disturbing to the dazzling. Here are a few of the selections that I loved.

Peter Dayton's work captured us at the entrance.  It reminded me of California summers, watching surfers magically walk on water over the waves at Newport Beach. It is one of the great, free spectator sports available. I love surf movies, surf music and my cousin's "oh so gnarly" surfer speak.  After a little research, I was sorely corrected by this John McWhinnie review: "To describe it as friendly, to decorators or to anyone else, is to focus only on the works seduction and miss its subversion entirely. His intensely luscious surfaces mimic the enticements of luxury goods. The work does not just strive to be merely beautiful, but irresistible. When paired with this subject matter it demonstrates the way our culture regularly applies a marketing sheen to the most antiestablishment figures or outré subcultures, transforming them into readily saleable commodities or attitudes. This work is like a Halloween bag overflowing with candy; it is an overdose of sugar expressly designed to give the viewer a stomachache."   Ooops!  My friend reminded me that I went to summer day camp with Peter Dayton, wearing our mandatory tennis whites. I am a little smug that some subversion arose from our uniformity. When my ODF (oldest and dearest friend) and I played "Dream Date" in the 60's, our winner was always the girl who got the surf bum, not the frat boy.  

Turning the corner, Meg and I were arrested by the Gregory Scott works in the Catherine Edelman Gallery.  On a seemingly innocent looking picture was a picture, within a video, within a picture. It reminded me of the living and moving portraits in Harry Potter, or Shakespeare's  play within a play.  I've never seen anything like it, but we loved the humor and surprise of his series. 

Make sure you read the artist's own words above,  about this groundbreaking work. I think of artists and visual people as being non-verbally expressive--Rauzier has words. I ran across this blog, researching him and became their 2nd follower: Paris, Paris or Love and Other Disasters.  

Art discussions can be beyond tedious, but this writer is helpful and clear. Here is the Paris, Paris description of the technology employed in the production of this luminous montage: “No lens is able to achieve, in one single shot, the sharpness that I obtain by assembling 200 photos”, explains the artist who works on his screen as a painter on his canvas. On his digital tablet, he crops, redesigns, assembles tree trunks, branches, leaves and other objects and elements collected patiently, at the site, when something inspires a future fantastic, bizarre, or baroque scenario. Inventing tales, unfolding supernatural visions, drawing the spectator into the wanderings of his reveries - this is, in fact his objective. His challenge? Transform the world according to his fantasies, desires, interrogations, and rediscover the magic and strangeness of tales and legends using XXIst century tools. An original and inspired approach for passing from singular to universal and for conjugating the present with the timeless." If I was an art collector, I'd have one of these. 

I STOP FOR INTERIOR RENDERINGS!  That would be my spooky bumper sticker. This Francisca Ahlers drawing stopped my heart. It is 45 1/2" x 46" and is $7,500.00.  I want it. I will be posting about the Albert Hadley drawings at the Gerald Bland Gallery in NYC, where I discovered Gerald's wife's, Mita Corsini Bland's, spectacular water color sketches for the Sister Parish book: Sister Parish Design: On Decorating by Susan Bartlett Crater and Libby Cameron.  I love Mark Hampton's drawings of friend's homes in The Art of Friendship. I, of course love my daughter Liza's childhood cross-sections pictured below--tongue biting detail for a 9 year old.     

 Priceless! 

I love my little girl jumping rope in the attic, where she arrived after a thousand stair cases. 

 Still Life with Cream Jug, Sugar and Strawberry 

Oil on limewood panel

14 x 16in

£6,500

Quantum Galleries from London presented the "Hi-Def" Jessica Brown. I love the reflection of the artist in the jug. 

Still Life with Peaches and Cream Jug 

Oil on limewood panel

16 x 14 in.

£5,500.00

Self taught photographer, Michael Eastman, had strangers nodding and discussing like old friends. Young Gallery Photo has a wonderful array of his glowing photographs and describes his approach and technique:  "Eastman holds the authenticity of the image as his highest goal. He shuns the use of artificial light and uses long exposure times instead, waiting as long as it takes for the natural illumination of the room to expose his film properly." h

Blue Building Toronto

Michael Eastman

Also, for unknown reasons, Green Eggs were an art gallery pattern during my NY stalk. 

Quantum Gallery: Lincoln Seligman: Acrylic on Canvas

60"x 60"

Jade Egg $25,000.00

I normally would not have given this picture a passing glance, except that I ran into this, in the city a couple of days ago at Fleesas, for $750. 00. It looked like a bit of "Duquettery" and I thought my friend Hutton Wilkinson might like it. 

Sam I am!!