A Case Of Multiple Choice

AB NY Gallery in East Hampton will present “Multiple Choice, an exhibition curated by Sarah Scribner and Olivia Phillips-Falk showing new paintings by Elise Ansel and Suzannah Wainhouse and sculpture by Luke Kooper. The opening reception is on Friday, September 2, from 4 to 7 p.m. and the exhibition runs through September 25 at the gallery.

The curators note that alchemical transformation is at the heart of this exhibition. The artists interpret ancient, historical forms through the lens of contemporary culture. The “melding of time is the essence of Ansel’s modus operandi: She dissects monuments in the history of painting and transforms their disjecta membra into her own painterly idiom” (Alfred Mac Adam, The Brooklyn Rail, December 2018). Suzannah Wainhouse’s work uses primordial shapes to convey ideas having to do with mysticism and alchemy. She “makes sense of the world through her hands, linking the visual with the tactile” (Kavitha Surana, The New York Times T Magazine, May 31, 2011). Luke Kooper carves totemic sculptures that transform the structural rigidity of wood into something graceful and alive. His humanized monoliths recall the fluidity of Solomonic columns and the spiritual essence of Moai statues.

The raw, visceral power of these works springs from their innovative use of familiar forms and materials to breathe fresh life into old stories. Ansel uses an idiom of energetic gestural abstraction to translate Old Master paintings into a contemporary pictorial language. Wainhouse conceives each painting as a kept secret, a tomb or jewel box. Kooper utilizes contrasting woods to create different textures that give the raw material an imaginative dimension. Each work in the exhibition celebrates the specific material characteristics of the media being used.

AB NY Gallery is at 62 Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village and is located in a converted industrial complex formerly used by Schenck Fuels. For more information, visit abnygallery.com.