Daria Deshuk puts studio art on display

The Deshuk Rivers art studio, located diagonally across from the Long Island Rail Road station in Bridgehampton at 141 Maple Street, hosted its inaugural event on Saturday, May 17, in grand style.

“The purpose of this event is to introduce the venue as an exhibition space for local artists,” said Daria Deshuk, figurative artist and owner of the studio. Featured at the opening was her psychedelic photography series, “Meeting Narcissus,” which presents creatively updated versions of the ancient myth of Narcissus, treated more traditionally by the Italian baroque artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

“As a fine artist, entering the new frontier of Photoshop in photography, I was shocked and amazed by the newfound freedom I had access to,” Ms. Deshuk wrote in the project’s artist statement.

With the help of David Kushnir, her current partner and business manager of the studio, and Danielle Franz, the studio’s creative director, the Deshuk Rivers studio has evolved into a lively, spacious exhibition space.

In December, the studio held a Toys for Tots fund-raiser that provided networking opportunities for the Daria-David-Danielle trio and served as a “test run for the three of us to better evaluate how we worked together as a team,” according to Ms. Deshuk.

Since its inception, the studio’s front exhibition space has been available for rent year-round to community artists in search of a venue to showcase their artwork.

Though “Finding Narcissus” is her first photography series project, Ms. Deshuk has worked from photographs throughout her career as a fine artist.

“The photograph has always been an integral part of my work,” she explains. “It has always allowed me to have greater content within the subject of my painting.”

In her wall paintings, Ms. Deshuk covers a wide breadth of artistic styles, from realistic renditions of urban or coastal scenes through classically-based paintings to abstract self-portraits. As she explains, “My work is about creating snapshots of life. ... With paint and brush I strive to capture the essence and atmosphere of the ordinary and mindless vignettes of daily life represented as unique moments in space and time.”

After obtaining a bachelor’s degree from the Parsons School of Design, Ms. Deshuk earned an MFA at Hunter College in 1984. She began coming to the Hamptons at the age of 24 with the celebrated pop artist Larry Rivers, who would be her partner for the next 15 years.

As Ms. Deshuk worked in a studio behind Mr. Rivers’s Southampton home, she became known in the East End arts community through exhibitions at renowned venues such as the Elaine Benson Gallery in Bridgehampton and East Hampton’s Guild Hall. Ten years later, Ms. Deshuk discovered what would become her current Bridgehampton studio, a single-room space with a second-floor loft in what had formerly been an industrial building. Ms. Deshuk saw promise in the building, even though it was then completely dilapidated.

“There were trees going through the roofs, and the walls bowed out maybe 4 to 6 inches,” she recalls. She resolutely worked at transforming the space into a light-filled room in which she could work and exhibit.

“It was a necessity for me to re-create my life and to support myself in order to produce an income,” Ms. Deshuk says, adding that she tried to create an exhibition space possessing what she calls a “Mom and Pop” intimacy.

A year and a half after negotiating with the town’s building department to obtain a construction permit, Ms. Deshuk and Mr. Kushnir began the grueling renovation process.

“There were two phases,” said Mr. Kushnir, who managed the reconstruction of the building. “The first was to rescue the building from collapsing into itself, and the second was to actually renovate the interior.”

After a costly overhaul that took nearly two years, the rotting edifice was transformed into a sleek, fully-equipped studio space. Then came the task of uncrating all of Ms. Deshuk’s inventory and settling in.

Ms. Franz’s daily duties range from assisting Mr. Kushnir in business operations and managing the mailing list to working closely with Ms. Deshuk in the framing and digital design of the artwork.

“I think we complement each other really well,” Ms. Franz said, referring to herself as more technical and business-oriented and Ms. Deshuk as the “overcreative artist.”

Saturday evening’s show featured not only Ms. Deshuk’s photography series, but a tribute display of the late Larry Rivers’s visual artworks on the studio’s second floor. Ms.

Deshuk describes “Finding Narcissus” as a project that evolved from a series of photographs she had taken of a young girl in a park in a dress that the artist had designed for a benefit party. This seemingly ordinary subject took on deep significance for the artist. “As I looked at the work, and the material that I had, the story ... became very timeless. And I felt it had a contemporary message that I wanted to share with the community.”

Indeed, in reenacting the mythical Narcissus figure, the female model became a “symbol of romantic idealism,” manifesting what Ms. Deshuk considers a healthy self-infatuation.

As for the Larry Rivers collection on display, Ms. Deshuk poignantly alluded to this aspect of the show as a “small homage to the man that helped make this [studio] possible for me” and “to get a last glimpse of his work before it goes back into storage.”

Eventually, Ms. Deshuk aims to organize upcoming shows of other artists, a process she says will be “gradual” and will occur over time. For the time being, the venue is strictly run as an exhibition space that is available for rent to other artists.

“This building will hopefully bring success to our future and to that of the communities’ artists,” she remarked.

Ms. Franz will have office hours from 12 to 5 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays throughout the summer for one-on-one tours of the exhibition space, where a carefully chosen blend of Ms. Deshuk’s art pieces will be on display. Ms. Deshuk and Ms. Franz will also be scheduling individual appointments throughout the week.

For more information, visit the Deshuk Rivers studio website at www.deshukriversgallery.com or Daria Deshuk’s personal website (www.dariadeshuk.com).