Butterfly Pie and Soft Spoken on view now

Sara Nightingale Gallery is open every day in July/ August and is currently presenting two exhibitions: Monica Banks, Butterfly Pie and a group show, Soft Spoken. Click the link http://www.saranightingale.com/exhibitions/ to view the exhibitions online, or stop by the gallery between 11:00 and 6:00 p.m. We are now located at 26 Main St. Sag Harbor, NY and are also open by appointment. 631-793-2256.

Images by Monica Banks and Steve Miller

Sara Nightingale Gallery is moving to Sag Harbor

Sara Nightingale Gallery is moving to 26 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY. Public Opening on Saturday, Jan. 14th from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.

(Between Black Swan Antiques and Harbor Books)

Photos by Aaron Kresberg of endangered species in Namibia. More info coming soon.

Jim Gingerich Benefit Exhibition, Out West, organized by Graham Leader, Sat. Oct 1, 5:00 - 9:00 pm

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present, Jim Gingrich, Out West, organized by Graham Leader, opening Saturday, Oct. 1 from 5:00 - 9:00 pm. The exhibition will also be on view Sunday, Oct. 2 from 12:00 - 5:00 pm.

    Highly Regarded for his vibrant, evocative landscapes of the South Fork’s fields and beaches, artist Jim Gingerich took a sabbatical from the East Coast last year and landed in the high desert of Utah’s southwest corner. There, on the western cusp of the Colorado Plateau, Gingrich settled on a horse ranch overlooking Smithsonian Butte and Zion National Park. “My vision expanded in the vast space, and the rusty red, volcanized landscape excited me. I welcomed the opportunity for verticality in my work.” During his year there, Gingerisch painted every day and became an avid rider, bonding with a white fox trotter, Lucy, through the foothills of Zion.

    Gingerich’s adventures with Lucy, well documented and enjoyed by friends and followers on Facebook and Instagram, ended with a serious riding accident on April 12 when Lucy lost her balance and fell on Jim, crushing his pelvis. Since then, Jim as undergone two major surgeries and is back home in the Hamptons. He looks forward to making a full recovery after extensive rehabilitation and therapy.

    Guests are asked to make a suggested donation of $20 to help offset Jim’s medical expenses. Prints of Gingerich’s “Lucy” will be available for sale.

    Gingerich’s passion for painting can be summed up in one of his favorite Matisse quotes: When Matisse was asked if he believed in God, he replied, “Only when I’m working.”

    For more information contact daniellecgingerich@gmail.com

     Image: Jim Gingerich, Lucy, 40 x 30 inches, oil on canvas

Autonomous Vehicles, now through Sept. 27th

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present, Autonomous Vehicles, opening Tuesday, August 23rd from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. The exhibition will run through Sept. 27th.

In Kantian moral philosophy, autonomous means acting in accordance with one’s moral duty rather than one’s desires. A vehicle can be anything used to express, embody or fulfill something. Consequently, the exhibition title is open to interpretation and serves as a “vehicle" for hash-tagging words like #driverlessroadrage, #rubbernecking, #situationalawareness, #shotgun - words that seem to be driving our current socio-political culture.

Human error now equals #systemfailure. So who is to blame when something goes wrong? God, humans, political systems or machines?

What is autonomy, and who or what possesses it? Can those who are marginalized or disenfranchised attain it? How will we as a society transition into abdicating our responsibilities and freedom to machines - machines that will certainly affect our free will, our individual autonomy?

Scott Sandell’s “Kites” first appeared when, after thirty years of printmaking, he wanted to make his prints come off the wall and into three dimensional space. Once they did, they assumed their own personality and behaviors; spinning in the breeze or by the hand of an onlooker. Evan Yee’s, Carrier, a bronze sculpture of a drone made from twigs and sticks, contrasts nature with technological advancement, as do Cara Enteles' paintings on industrial substrates of weeds overtaking a garden. Other artists in the exhibition, such as Christian Little and Perry Burns, make references to social media and the internet, autonomous vehicles in their own right. Scott Bluedorn’s, Ark, made from photo transfers from a 19th century encyclopedia, brings an historical perspective to the exhibition, citing religion and chance as players in our individual and collective destinies.

Street artist ESSAM’s Drone Zone Signs, meant to look like standard issue NYPD parking signs, were placed in various locations around New York City in 2012. Next to the signs, he stenciled quotes from the founding fathers addressing the issue of liberty vs. safety. Alexis Martino’s photographs of young adults "playing" with guns, suggest that we can either surrender our autonomy to technology (and its efficiency) for the destruction of human lives or for the expansion of empathy. Christa Maiwald’s “Backwards” portrait of Donald Trump, reveals loose threads and knots on the underside of her embroidery work, while Yuliya Lanina’s surreal mythical characters inhabit a fantastical universe. In one of Lanina's works on paper, a huge head of a cat hovers over a female character dressed only in lingerie, the cat’s large eye a witness to a private moment.

For more information and images contact Sara Nightingale: sara@saranightingale.com

*The gallery is open by appointment only. Please call before coming: 631-793-2256

image: Alexis Martino, Brenna & Julian in the Jeep, Digital C-print with plexi mount, 25" x 25"

Scott Bluedorn
Perry Burns
Cara Enteles
E. Adam Attia a.k.a. ESSAM
Stephanie Brody-Lederman
Yuliya Lanina
Christian Little
Christa Maiwald
Alexis Martino
Scott Sandell
Evan Yee

Steven Kinder, Natural Forces, Opens Saturday, June 18, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Steven Kinder, B3-15, acrylic, pigment and crayon on rag paper, 40 1/2" x 78"

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present Steven Kinder, Natural Forces, opening Saturday, June 18, from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. The gallery will also present Steven Kinder’s solo installation, the burden, organized by curator Katherine Gass, at ArtHamptons, June 23 - 26, booth #205. http://www.arthamptons.com/ 900 Lumber Lane, Bridgehampton, NY 11932

Natural Forces, Steven Kinder’s works on paper and canvas created between 2013 and 2016, explore his fascination with dynamic tension found in nature. Tornados, tidal pools, sunbursts, black holes, combustion, organic symmetry and fractals are among the sources of inspiration for these deeply saturated and mostly large-scale works. Kinder’s drawings/ paintings - there are elements of both mediums in each work - express the radiant vitality and energetic playfulness inherent in his practice.

Concurrently, a multi-media installation by Steven Kinder, organized by curator Katherine Gass, titled the burden will be presented at ArtHamptons. The installation explores the survival systems and symbols of the homeless with the intent to raise awareness about the prevalence of those who remain unsheltered in major urban areas. Invisibility, fear, abandonment, levels of despair and street survival are brought to light through the use of recurring motifs such as a woman’s hunched body, a cross, a cup, a cardboard sign and a stained glass window. Taken individually, each has its own powerful resonance, but together they create a narrative about transcendence, pain, systems of commodity and exchange, institutional abandonment, and redemption.

Steven Kinder is a multi-media artist who works in Brooklyn, NY. He attended Cooper Union and has been making paintings, sculpture, and drawings for over forty years. Natural Forces and the burden will be the first-ever public exhibitions of Kinder’s work.

The gallery show runs through July 18th. For further information, more images or if you would like VIP tickets to ArtHamptons, please contact Sara Nightingale at sara@saranightingale.com or 631-793-2256.

Steve Miller Opening Saturday, April 16, 5:30 - 7:30

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present Steve Miller, Your Version, My Version, currently on view at the gallery. There will be a reception on Saturday, April 16th, from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. The exhibition will run through May 15th.

After the opening please join us at Spring Fling at the Parrish Art Museum. It begins at 7:30 p.m. You can purchase tickets here: http://parrishart.org/SpringFling2016

Since 2005 Steve Miller has been taking X-rays of lungs: the lungs of our planet. It is the Oxygen/ CO2 exchange of the Amazon region that interests Miller in his Health of the Planet (HOP) series, a body of work in which X-rays of flora and fauna, as well as satellite images of the Amazon basin, inform his visual vocabulary. Science and technology have always factored in Miller’s art, technology being “the language of our times” and the means through which we all communicate. Like a scientist, Miller investigates and explores in his artistic practice. But rather than seeking a specific outcome, he strives for compelling images that inspire dialogue. Your Version, My Version includes paintings from the Health of the Planet series that examine relationships between organic forms and technical ones, the macro and the micro, photography and painting, representation and abstraction.

The series required Miller to travel to Brazil in order to work with a local hospital to procure X-rays of indigenous plants and animals. The specimens are “caught like patients under the scrutinizing eye of the X-ray”. Recent explosions in social, cultural and economic growth in the region have led to decay as much as they have to development. Depleted forests, overpopulated favelas, and endangered species all contribute to the asthmatic gasping of our global lungs. The need for electricity expressed in the tangled power lines of the favela might seem worlds away from the taxidermy trophy hanging on the walls of the elite, but these references in Miller’s work, however aestheticized and beautifully transformed, imply that everyone is complicit in global consumption and its impact on the environment, even if we have different “versions” of the causes, effects and solutions.

Steve Miller has an extensive international exhibition history including participation in museum shows at the Brooklyn Museum, the New Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York, The National Academy of the Sciences in Washington, DC, the Aldrich Museum, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Rose Museum and the Broad Art Museum in Michigan. In 2017 Glitterati will publish a 160 page monograph of his work of the last twenty years.

http://hamptonsarthub.com/2016/04/04/art-review-steve-miller-works-fulfill-promise-of-applying-science-to-art/

https://issuu.com/museemagazine/docs/musee_edition_14_final/74

Also on view at the gallery: Highlights from SPRING/ BREAK Art Show: works by Monica Banks and Christian Little. 

The gallery is open by appointment during the week, and from 11:00 - 6:00 p.m. on weekends. It is always advisable to call ahead. 631-793-2256

Sara Nightingale  Gallery
688 Montauk Highway
Water Mill, NY 11963

sara@saranightingale.com

Available works from Spring Break Art Show on view at the gallery through April 30th

 Christian Little, Exhibitionists #5, Acrylic on panel, 36" x 36"

Christian Little, Exhibitionists #2, Acrylic on panel, 36" x 36"


Christian Little, Exhibitionists #3, Acrylic on panel, 36" x 36"


Christian Little, Exhibitionists #13(Breakfast in Bed), Acrylic on panel, 36" x 36"

Christian Little, Exhibitionists #10 (Spa), Acrylic and mixed media on panel, 24" x 24"

Christian Little, Exhibitionists #12 (Tanning Bed), Acrylic on panel, 24" x 24"


Monica Banks, Anthem, 6 1/2" x 7 1/2" x 7 1/4", Hymn, 10 1/16" x 5 3/4" x 5 1/2", porcelain

Monica Banks, Ceremony, 9 1/2" x 7" x 7", Celebration, 8" x 7 3/4" x 7 3/4", Ode, 9 3/4" x 7" x 7", porcelain

SPRING/ BREAK Art Show Open through Monday at 6:00 p.m.

Little Deaths

Curator: Sara Nightingale

SPRING/ BREAK Art Show, Room #3101

Skylight at Moynihan Station

421 8th Ave. at West 31st St.

Wednesday, March 2 - Sunday, March 6  12:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Monday, March 7  12:00 - 6:00 p.m.

http://www.springbreakartshow.com/


Little Deaths brings together two artists who examine opposite ends of life’s spectrum. Christian Little’s Exhibitionists paintings address sex (the origin of life) and the “look at me” culture of oversharing, while Monica Banks’ sculptures of figures on the cusp of death consider life’s demise.

The French idiom for “orgasm", la petite mort, seems counterintuitive. Why the association of death with sex, the ultimate act of creation, replication, ⌘copy⌘paste? The little death can also refer to a short period of malaise, transcendence or climax that comes with the metaphorical and temporary suspension of one’s “life force”. Moreover, it has been used to describe a state of being one experiences when immersed in a great work of literature or art.

Monica Banks’ sculptures of miniature porcelain figures - humans as well as bees, mice and birds - depict organic forms on the threshold between life and death or replicas of the deceased. Her “domestic monuments” to suffering and lifeless creatures suggest narratives addressing the mass graves of major disaster sites, both natural and man-made, in which human forms are numerous and anonymous. Sometimes just one or two small dead beings evoke the moment a death is discovered or remembered. Tragedies both large and small are rendered in a modest scale, bringing into perspective an individual’s relationship to historical events.

Banks’ figures are presented on porcelain cakes and cake stands, which serve as tributes to the “victims” and stem from her empathy for her subjects. The cakes also explore themes of consumption, ephemerality and craft, as well as gender roles in the home. Broken dishes recall Julian Schnabel’s plate paintings of the 1980’s, but in contrast to his grandiose and baroque presentations, Banks’ assemblages of tiny “abject pottery” serve as humble artifacts of domesticity, archeological remnants of family, food and love.

Christian Little’s acrylic paintings on wood panel examine a voyeur culture preoccupied with sex, drama and the lives of others.  His scenarios of "imagined actualities" are simultaneously voyeuristic and participatory, erotic and sterile, stiff and fluid, analytic and absurd.

Little’s Exhibitionists series, in which he places human “sculptures” on top of pedestals, references shunga, Japanese erotic prints from the 18th Century. However, while most shunga contain sexually explicit imagery, Little’s Exhibitionists paintings create sexual innuendo subtly, using abstraction and an elaborate combination of painting styles to depict his figures and their implied activities. Hair pulling, straddling, the lifting of fabric, movement under that fabric, smoking, etc… are some of the pursuits of his willing protagonists. The figures in the paintings seem unaware that they are being watched, though it is clear they are putting on a show for a suggested audience, viewers in an art gallery, perhaps, an ironic jab at the human desire for spectacle and immortality. Contemporary culture’s addiction to oversharing is intimated in the format of the paintings; their square shapes mimic Instagram posts and profile pics.

Little challenges the dimensional limitations of traditional painting through the use of trompe l’oeil and decorative painting techniques, using paint self-consciously to address painting’s history. Faux finishing techniques and simulated textures act as visual anchors in these wildly mannered works, alluding to the material world as well as the virtual and imagined.

Monica Banks lives and works in East Hampton, NY. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Parrish Art Museum, The Islip Art Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art at U Mass, Amherst, and The Catherine Konner Sculpture Park. She has exhibited at White Box, the Center for Architecture in NYC, The Carriage House at the Islip Art Museum, the Heckscher Art Museum and Sara Nightingale Gallery among other venues. She created “ Faces: Times Square,” a block-long sculpture which stood in Times Square from 1996-2009, for which she won an award from the NYC Public Design Commission. Her permanent public works are located in the Bronx, Binghamton NY, and Charlotte NC. She has been exhibiting sculpture and creating site-specific installations since 1989.

Christian Little lives and works in Kingston, NY. He earned his BFA ('05) and MFA ('15) in Painting/Drawing from SUNY New Paltz. He has exhibited at Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Projects in Long Island City and The Kingston Museum of Contemporary Art in Kingston, NY. Recent solo shows include The Silent Barn in Brooklyn, NY, Sara Nightingale Gallery in Water Mill, NY and The Hewn Arts Center in Jersey City, NJ.

Upcoming Events

Team Spirit

Opening Tuesday, Feb. 23rd 6:00 - 7:30
YARP (Bridgehampton Childcare Center and Watermill Center community collaboration)
Organized by Andrea Cote

Tuesday, Feb. 23rd - Friday, Feb 26
hours by appointment. Please call 631-793-2256 before visiting.


Little Deaths
 
March 2 - 7
Spring/ Break Art Show, Room #3101

Skylight at Moynihan Station
421 8th Ave. at West 31st St.
Wednesday, March 2 - Sunday, March 6 12:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Monday, March 7 12:00 - 6:00 p.m.
http://www.springbreakartshow.com/

Curated by Sara Nightingale

Christian Little, Exhibitionists, Opening Saturday, January 30th, 5 - 7 p.m.

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present Christian Little, Exhibitionists, opening Saturday, Jan. 30th from 5 - 7 p.m.

    Christian Little’s recent body of work examines a voyeur culture preoccupied with sex, drama and the lives of others. His acrylic paintings on wood panel are intended not to offer a representation of reality, but rather to suggest simulations of imagined actualities. The paintings are simultaneously voyeuristic and participatory, erotic and sterile, stiff and fluid, analytic and absurd.

    Little’s Exhibitionists series, in which he places human “sculptures”on top of pedestals, references shunga (spring drawings), a form of Japanese erotic ukiyo-e woodblock prints from the 18th Century. However, while most shunga contain sexually explicit imagery, Little’s paintings create sexual innuendo subtly, using abstraction and an elaborate combination of painting styles to depict his figures and their implied activities. Hair pulling, straddling, the lifting of fabric, movement under that fabric, smoking, etc… are some of the pursuits of his willing protagonists. The figures in the paintings seem unaware that they are being watched, though it is clear they are putting on a show for a suggested audience, viewers in an art gallery or museum, perhaps, an ironic jab at the human desire for spectacle and immortality. Contemporary culture’s addiction to over-sharing is implied in the format of the paintings; their square shapes mimic Instagram posts and profile pics.

    Little challenges the dimensional limitations of traditional painting through the use of trompe l’oeil and decorative painting techniques, using paint self-consciously to address painting’s history. Faux finishing techniques and simulated textures act as visual anchors in these wildly mannered works, alluding to the material world as well as the virtual and imagined.

    Little received his MFA from SUNY, New Paltz in 2015. He has exhibited with Sara Nightingale Gallery since 2009.

    The exhibition will be on view through Feb. 20. For more information and images contact Sara Nightingale  sara@saranightingale.com   631-793-2256

Hours are by appointment. Please call ahead before visiting the gallery.

Hours and Directions

The gallery will be open on Sunday, Jan. 10th from 11 - 6 pm. Please call or text: 631-793-2256 if you would like to schedule an appointment at another time over the weekend or next week (Jan. 11- 16). sara@saranightingale.com

Sara Nightingale Gallery

688 Montauk Highway

Water Mill, NY 11976

Holiday Hours by Appointment through Jan. 3rd

Sara Nightingale Gallery will be open sporadically through Jan. 3rd and available for viewings by appointment. Please email sara@saranightingale.com or call/ text 631-793-2256 to schedule an appointment.

Perry Burns, 3rd Eye Bullseye, oil on canvas, 36" x 36"

Aqua Art-Miami, Dec. 2 - 6, 1530 Collins Ave. Miami Beach

If you are in Miami this week please visit us at Aqua, room #112. Contact me for access to the fair.

Cara Enteles, Mirrors in the Garden, Opening Saturday, Nov. 14th, 5- 7 p.m.

Cara Enteles, Gone Wild, Oil on acrylic panel, 48” x 43"

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present Cara Enteles, Mirrors in the Garden, opening Saturday, November 14th, from 5 - 7 p.m.

In this selection of recent paintings Cara Enteles explores the impossibility of symmetry, order and exactness in nature. Drawing from Shakespeare’s line in Hamlet, “art holds a mirror up to nature”, she seeks to illustrate the dichotomy between organic, natural growth and the human gardener's attempt to control it. An avid gardener herself, Enteles splits her time between New York City and a home in the Catskills where access to the surrounding wilderness informs her work.

Enteles has long been addressing environmental issues in her work - oil spills, colony collapse disorder, and fracking are some examples - and her paintings allude to circumstances in which human activity threatens nature. Yet the work is neither sententious nor moralistic. In fact, the casual observer will find a collection of beautiful paintings of plants and animals, albeit with an unusual sheen in the surrounding water or an emphasis on “alternative pollinators” should the honey bees become extinct.

Because she paints on industrial supports, aluminum sheets and layers of plexiglas often bolted to the wall, Enteles’ work contains an inherent tension between the organic subject matter depicted and the materials with which they are constructed. Birds, butterflies, bees and flowers set against a backdrop of reflective plexiglas literally hold a mirror up to nature, while gold-toned plexiglas backings on her bee paintings evoke pollen. The transparency that plexiglas affords provides a means for three-dimensional representation - Enteles paints on both sides of the plexiglas - further reinforcing the realistic and imperative nature of her concerns, while also acknowledging the implicit contradiction that plexiglas is itself a man-made, petroleum based product.

Enteles received her BFA from Parsons School of Design. She exhibits internationally and her work is held in private and public collections including Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Microsoft and WilmerHale. Her work has been shown at Wave Hill, The HVCCA and The Islip Art Museum. This will be her third solo exhibition at the gallery.

The exhibition will run through December 14th.

For information or more images contact Sara Nightingale at 631-793-2256

Stephanie Brody-Lederman, Out Gallivanting, Opens Saturday, Nov. 14th, 5 - 7 p.m.

Sara Nightingale Gallery and guest curator Karyn Mannix are pleased to present Stephanie Brody-Lederman, Out Gallivanting, opening Saturday, November 14th from 5 - 7 p.m.

Stephanie Brody-Lederman’s paintings and mixed media works combine her observations and memories of visual occurrences with text gleaned from conversation, poetry and other sources. The works depict seemingly quotidian experiences and impressions of everyday life, and, indeed, their inspiration derives from simple objects or events such as a recollection of a woman’s scarf, a label on a can in a grocery store, or snippets of overheard conversations. Yet Brody-Lederman’s personal narratives are imbued with emotionally charged undertones that generate “impressionistic portraits of uncertain psychic atmospheres”*. It is this ambient concern for the mysteries of human nature and affairs of the heart that lends a universal context to the work.

It has been said that no two people can truly share a memory, even if the actual experience is shared, because each person forms his or her own version of what actually transpired. Likewise, an individual may have several versions of a private memory, and these can change and evolve over time. In theory, this feature of the human experience seems alienating, but it gives life to Brody-Lederman’s work as each viewer projects his or her own memories and emotions onto the canvasses, engaging in a dialogue with the artist’s experiences as well as their own.

Stephanie Brody-Lederman has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards and has exhibited internationally at galleries and museums, including OK Harris, Musee Bourdelle in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art, NY and The Cooper Hewitt. Her work is held in public collections such as Tate London, The Brooklyn Museum and MoMa, NY.

There will be an opening reception at Guild Hall in East Hampton for her solo exhibition, Dancing with Truffaut, on Saturday, October 24th, 4 - 6 p.m. The exhibition will run through Jan. 3rd.

On Saturday, Nov. 14th Brody-Lederman will give a talk about her work at Guild Hall, East Hampton at 11:30 a.m.

For more information and images contact Sara Nightingale (631)-793-2256 sara@saranightingale.com or Karyn Mannix (516) 318-0000 karynmannix@optonline.net.

*Edward M. Gomez, Art & Antiques, September 2012

image: Stephanie Brody-Lederman, In Perfect Bloom, oil and acrylic on canvas, 48" x 48"

Selected works from True Confections, Monica Banks and Christa Maiwald

                                          email sara@saranighitngale.com for more details

True Confections Opens Thursday, Aug. 6th, 6 - 8 p.m.

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present True Confections, Monica Banks, Christa Maiwald opening Thursday, Aug. 6th from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. The exhibition runs through Sept. 3rd.

True Confections is a multimedia exhibition featuring sculpture, installation, photography, embroidery, performance, and edible sculpture. As mothers who are responsible for nurturing others and maintaining domestic life, Christa Maiwald and Monica Banks explore the surreal and emotional aspects of feeding others, honoring occasions, and witnessing life's transitions inside and outside the home. The artists share an ethos in their separate practices which reflects Flaubert’s declaration that “We are bourgeois in our lives so we can take chances in our work."

Monica Banks’ sculptures of miniature porcelain figures—humans as well as bees, mice, birds and teacups—depict organic forms on the threshold between life and death or figures who are suffering. The tiny scale of the works acknowledges the larger universe we inhabit and brings history and world events into the present moment. In True Confections, Banks creates porcelain cakes and cake stands as pedestals for her sculptures. The cakes are an homage to her experiences, which include the joys and playfulness of domesticity as well as the cruelty of nature, the despair of loss. Other works included in the exhibition are her swings, "Abject Pottery", which are playground swings crafted to hold miniature distressed dinnerware, a tribute to the fleeting nature of childhood.

Christa Maiwald will exhibit work from her ongoing Landscape Cake Series, in which she bakes elaborate cakes, then photographs them in nature. She will also present a cake performance at the opening reception. These performances, now becoming a convention in her practice, investigate the ritual of sharing her freshly baked cakes/confections with strangers. They also explore themes of consumption, ephemerality and craft, as well as gender roles (baking has long been associated with women’s work—as has embroidery, the other medium that Maiwald pursues with prolific obsession). The act of an artist cutting up his or her work and disseminating it among a crowd is subversive, but also generous. Slices of cake are given for free to willing participants, bypassing the traditional monetary exchange and commercialism associated with the art world. The exhibition will also include work from Maiwald’s hand-embroidered Cat Series, in which cats and humans engage in activities ranging from the sweet to the feral.

Monica Banks was born in in New York City and lives and works in East Hampton NY. She has exhibited sculpture at White Box in New York City, The University Museum of Contemporary Art at U Mass Amherst, The Carriage House at the Islip Art Museum in Islip NY, the Catherine Konner Sculpture Park in West Nyack NY, The Fells in Newbury New Hampshire, The Center for Architecture in New York City, The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington NY and other venues. She created "Faces: Times Square", a block-long sculpture which stood in Times Square from 1996-2009, for which she won an award from The Public Design Commission of the City of New York. Her permanent public works are located in the Bronx, Binghamton NY, and Charlotte NC. She has been exhibiting sculpture and doing site-specific installations since 1989.

After earning her M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1973, Christa Maiwald moved to New York, where she established herself as a video artist with solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Anthology Film Archives, Holly Solomon Gallery, and Franklin Furnace, among others, and was included in the 1979 Whitney Biennial. After a detour into screenwriting, children’s book illustration, cooking school, restaurant work, and starting a family, she resumed her career as an artist with paintings, sculpture, installations, and, since 2000, hand embroidery and photography. In addition to a one-artist exhibition at Guild Hall in 2013, her embroideries and photographs have been shown in solo and group shows internationally, including at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City, Galerie Houg in Lyon, France, the Parrish Art Museum, the Heckscher Museum of Art, and galleries in New York and on the East End. She has lived in East Hampton full time since 1985.

For more information or images contact Sara Nightingale at sara@saranightingale.com

There will be an artists’ talk with coffee and confections in the gallery on Sunday, Aug. 16 at 11:00 am.

Images: Top: Monica Banks, Tribute, porcelain, 10 1/4" x 7" x 7"
Bottom: Christa Maiwald, Sky Cake (Angel Food), archival pigment print, 16" x 20", edition 5

Review of Reinventing the Helm in EH Star. Thank you, Jennifer Landes!

http://easthamptonstar.com/Arts/2/NIghtingale-Gallery-Reimagines-Marine-Art-Water-Mill

Reinventing the Helm closes Monday, Aug. 3rd

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present Reinventing the Helm, June 6th - Aug. 3rd.

The artists in this invitational group exhibition examine the genres of traditional maritime and marine art using ship portraiture, seascapes, novels, folklore and ancient myths about the sea as inspiration. The obvious and straightforward have been mostly, but not altogether, thwarted here in deference to an updated and contemporary view of all things nautical. One painting by Perry Burns, whose swerving lines suggest the surface of the sea, was literally turned on its side and renamed “Waterfall” - a good metaphor for what one can expect from the exhibition.

While not specifically divided into categories, the works address several themes such as “lost souls”, meteorological events, marine life, nautical terminology and even edible “fruits of the sea”.
Seagull sculptures by Rossa Cole, fabricated from the plastic six-pack holders that endanger marine life, hover over a large scale sculpture of a wooden boat’s ribs by Simone Douglas. Peter Buchman’s rubbings/ stencils of manhole covers juxtapose one from New Orleans with one from Santa Monica, implicitly reminding us of the potential impact of too much or too little water. Dalton Portella’s White Water super-imposes images of multiple storms in one composite photograph, yielding a surreal depiction of waves, clouds and sunlight which, according to one viewer, “looks almost biblical”. A lighthouse made of reclaimed lumber by David McQueen aims its beacon through a gallery window toward the ocean, its light a guide for someone trying to return.

The list of artists includes those with international representation and museum exhibition history, as well as emerging artists from Brooklyn, Wynwood, the West Coast and Ireland. One can expect a plethora of boats, ships, sharks, clouds and even a cake, as well as characters who may or may not be schooled in the art of helmsmanship.

Reinventing the Helm opens on Saturday, June 6th from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. and runs through Aug. 3rd.

Conditional/ Return, Opening Friday, April 17, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present Australian born, New York based, artists Zev Jonas and Simone Douglas, Conditional/ Return, Opening Friday, April 17, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The exhibition investigates the kinships, as well as the disconnects, between people and their environments. Jonas’ contemplative photographs examine solitude in nature, while Douglas’ nautical sculpture - a reference to her upcoming large scale desert installation - suggests a reunion with the land.

Jonas’ images, taken from his ongoing series, The Condition, explore the tension between isolation and connection, while considering the relationship we have with our surroundings. The work focuses on the beauty and sensuality of seclusion, as well as the search for a sense of purpose and place. Jonas shoots his work on film and presents it with minimal alteration. His images are untitled, undated and non-location-specific, so viewers can interact with the images with no preconceived notions.

Zev Jonas’ work has been exhibited in the US and Internationally. His solo exhibitions include a presentation at the Australian Consulate, New York timed with the release of a limited edition monograph, a copy of which is housed in the Rare Printed Collection of the State Library of Victoria in Australia. His 2011 solo show, Passage, in NY was a “Notable Show of the Year” in NY Photo Review.


Douglas’ Return encompasses work made over a decade of engagement with landscape and environment. It draws from two of her ongoing projects, Promise and Eternal Return. The former is based on a story of a search for the inland sea in the Australian desert; an explorer sails into the desert looking for the sea and finds himself in the ancient seabed. Douglas is constructing a large scale ship made of ice scheduled for installation in the Australian desert in July 2016. It’s mass has been calibrated so that it will take one month to melt completely, leaving in its wake a trace of red native wildflowers, watered by the melting boat. Eternal Return is a body of photo-based works that “hold night and day, the moon and the sun within one moment of extended time.”

Simone Douglas’ practice includes photography, video, sculpture, installation and site-specific works. She is committed to environmental legacy, intercultural facilitation and making art that serves as a medium to activate key issues of our time. Douglas has exhibited in museums internationally and her works are held in the public collections of the V&A Museum, London, the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Douglas is the director of the MFA Fine Arts Program at Parsons The New School for Design and serves on the editorial committee of Project Anywhere. She is an honorary faculty member (Research) at The University of Sydney and has curated exhibitions at major international cultural institutions.

The exhibition will run from April 17 - May 17. For more information or images contact Sara Nightingale, sara@saranightingale.com