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Gavin Zeigler's "Untitled #5" is on view at Hampton Road Gallery in Southampton.

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Whether discussing the influence of scale in the visual impact of artwork such as can be found in the current exhibition at the Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton or pondering the recent reconfiguration of Hampton Road Gallery in Southampton, it is readily apparent that, within the art world at least, size does matter.

This certainly holds true at Hampton Road Gallery, where the recent expansion into a vacant storefront next door provides an opportunity for the realization of more extensive insights into an individual artist’s work while also allowing for fewer restrictions in terms of space allotted for each individual piece.

Both effects work to particular advantage for the first artist to make use of the new gallery, Shelter Island’s Gavin Zeigler, whose paintings and collages featuring sharply delineated geometric forms significantly benefit from the more expansive hanging opportunities. Allowing each work to exist within its own parameters of light, texture and color, the airier space enhances the impact of each while the continuity in visual imagery throughout the exhibition is never diminished.

As a result, one becomes distinctly aware, from one series to the next, of an entertaining balance that the artist achieves. As a result of this equilibrium, restrained gestural motifs continually offer evidence of the physical presence of the artist but without overshadowing the elegantly simplistic arithmetical rhythms that serve as the works’ compositional framework.

In essence, one is perpetually aware of the artist’s hand, but not at the expense of the construction of a highly refined surface quality juxtaposing geometric form and assertive and lively coloration.

This kind of balance is particularly notable in either of his recent series, titled “Keys” or “Pennies on Wood.” In both, the artist’s technique, applying layers of paint over the objects and then stripping them off, allows the viewer insights into method while also allowing each heretofore common article to take on unique characteristics that are inimitable in how they hold both color and light.

As a result, one becomes aware of rhythmically meditative streams that ebb and flow within each particular piece, their impact enhanced by the equilibrium reached between the primacy of structure and the liberating methodology of chance.

In other works, such as those from the “Spectrum” series, Mr. Zeigler conjures interesting relationships between architectonic bands of color that structure the surface composition and, in the background, collaged bank notes and pay stubs that are transformed into graceful planar images floating in an indeterminate distance. They illustrate, as Thomas Hart Benton once noted, that “form is seen as a derivative of the organization of color planes.”

The current exhibition of recent works by Gavin Zeigler continues at Hampton Road Gallery in Southampton through July 23.

The significance of size is even more immediate in the group exhibition titled “Giganticism” at Silas Marder Gallery in Bridgehampton, although, the show’s moniker notwithstanding, it seems more an exhibit focused on elements of scale within works rather than on any sheer gargantuan qualities of the works themselves.

Having said that, it must be acknowledged that one is greeted at the gallery entrance by one of Bill King’s signature sculptures, the figure standing almost 12 feet tall with its arms stretched akimbo in almost the same length, whimsically posed as if of a bayman bragging of a fish, “It was this big!”

Further, continuing up into the loft, visitors will find the entire space occupied by three impressively large screens showing the Dutch artist Jaco Olivier’s animated “Whale,” in which painterly images appear and then vanish, creating rhythms of gently undulating hallucinations that mimic a whale’s movements, once again balancing figuration and abstraction. It’s actually a very effective piece on a number of levels, but is victimized by the unfortunate presence of a large light stanchion right in front of the best viewing spot, thereby bisecting the images and detracting somewhat from the visual impact it would otherwise impart.

Aside from these examples, though, the emphasis in the exhibition is mostly about scale of imagery; either within specific works, such as Carla Knopp’s “Mount B” (oil on wood, 2008), and John Morse’s “Late Spring Dusk” (collage, 2009), or in terms of the relationship between the central image and the surface ground itself, as in Mica Marder’s “Night Owl” (oil on canvas, 2009).

Also featured in a number of adjoining garden sheds at Marder’s are small paintings and collages from children at the Bridgehampton Child Care Center exploring interpretations of work by African-American and Hispanic artists as well as local icons such as Roy Lichtenstein. Organized and curated by Erin O’Connor and Bonnie Cannon, this exhibition, like almost all shows of children’s works, illustrates the freedom and spontaneity that all too quickly vanishes from adult endeavors.