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At 5 p.m. on a recent Thursday evening, Gregory de la Haba was sipping a glass of red wine at home in Queens.
Two 6½-foot-tall sculptures awaited him outside — manifestations of ancient memories, he said, embodiments of primordial incantations that echo nature, peace and serenity.
But they were rough. De la Haba was only getting started, he said. After all, just earlier that morning, they were whole surfboards.
“I’ve been drawing designs all week, and I just finished carving them about an hour ago,” he said. “I carve it all by hand, so you see, they’re in their raw state before I start to sand and coat them.”
He calls them his “Stellar Surf Totems,” three of which he will display starting Saturday at the Southampton Arts Center, as part of “East End Collected4” — a collection of work from 30 artists who join the 100 who came before them, all carefully selected by curator Paton Miller.
“What interests me is the range of artists. You have your Michelangelos and you have your James Ensors, who was an artist in Brussels who pretty much spent most of his life painting in his mother’s attic,” Miller said. “You have this range of artists who are technical geniuses and others who have carved out their own language.
“That’s what I love about the nature of the art world,” he continued. “There’s no set playing rules. It’s pretty much just people working with their own language and their own vision. And what I’ve enjoyed doing is bringing them all together.”
Elizabeth Geissler’s artistic language starts with a river-like brushstroke of oil paint at the top of the nearly every canvas — “a specter of the presence of things to come,” she says. Then she applies passages of color that she sands down and builds back up, creating texture before she finally lets go, finding the unintended parts of each painting.
“Something important that was said to me by a favorite mentor was, ‘Let the painting tell you what it wants to be, instead of forcing it to be something,’” Geissler explained. “And for me, I think resolving something is a struggle, but you have to let it tell you what it wants to be. I always liked that feeling. It kind of relieves you of responsibility. Amazing things happen that you didn’t expect. You almost can’t take credit for it.”
[caption id="attachment_77825" align="alignnone" width="746"]
"Fairly Squarly" by Dan Welden.[/caption]
Artist Dan Welden looks within when creating his etchings, a pair of which he’ll show in “East End Collected4” — one 4 feet tall and the other 4 feet wide, both some of the largest he’s ever done, and also inspired by a residency he had in China.
“They just kind of came out of me that way, by just exploring,” he said. “They depict connections. Connections would be a key word. When I travel, I’m very inspired by whatever I see, and that’s where some of the connections come: between people and people, and land and land, and sometimes just different things I put together involving the earth and sustainability. These are things that are in my heart. I like to make these connections.”
He paused. “I like to say, ‘Everything is one.’ Things are brought together in some way or another — not unlike this show.”
“East End Collected4,” curated by Paton Miller, will open with a reception on Saturday, March 31, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Southampton Arts Center, located at 25 Jobs Lane in Southampton. Admission is free.
Participating artists include: Mary Abbott, Mike Ahearn, Hal Buckner, Perry Burns, Eteri Chkadva, Bonnie Cohen, Andrea Cote, Pierre Cote, Gregory Delahaba, James DeMartis, Ellen Frank, Elizabeth Geisler, Kimberly Goff, Elaine Grove, Michael Ferran, Sophie Howell, Dana Little, Steve Loschen, Kenny Mann, Mary Mattingly, Lindsay Morris, Roy Nicholson, Shimon Okshteyn, Mickey Paraskevas, Julia Scheuer, Kerry Sharkey-Miller, Liz Sloan, Neal Thomason, Abigail Vogel and Dan Welden.
The exhibit will remain on view through May 20. For more information on related programs, please call (631) 283-0967 or visit southamptonartscenter.org.
on Mar 27, 2018