‘My Wife, Masked and Unmasked’ Opens at Duck Creek

The Arts Center at Duck Creek will open “My Wife, Masked and Unmasked,” a solo exhibition by artist and filmmaker Carol Saft, with a reception on Saturday, June 14, from 5 to 7 p.m. The show remains on view through July 20.

Saft’s deeply personal paintings explore the fragile rituals of intimacy, love, aging and visibility. In this striking new body of work, Saft captures her wife, Cynthia, in private moments of rest, self-care, and vulnerability — often in bed or in the bathroom, glowing beneath the surreal, fluorescent light of a beauty mask.

These are not conventional portraits; they are offerings — moments suspended in time, where the viewer is allowed a rare, unfiltered glimpse into the quiet interiority of a long relationship. Cynthia appears nude, half-dressed, wrapped in a towel, or bathed in the unnatural light of so-called “healing” devices. The body is unposed, the gestures are familiar, and yet the scenes pulse with emotional tension. What is revealed? What remains unknowable?

“I believe that our most intimate moments reveal the beautiful imperfection of our humanity,” Saft writes in her artist statement.

This guiding principle is palpable in every painting: From the mundane to the absurd, the erotic to the tender, each work resists idealization in favor of emotional truth. The fluorescent glow of a beauty mask becomes both armor and spotlight; the bed becomes both sanctuary and stage.

Best known for her documentary shorts and experimental video series “My Brother Todd,” Saft brings a filmmaker’s instinct to her painting — carefully framing each scene like a shot, and using color and lighting with theatrical precision.

“I look upon painting as a proscenium,” she explains, “a place where the viewer is dropped into a moment, mid-action, before anything is resolved.”

Carol Saft’s work has been shown at the Smithsonian Institute, Canada Gallery, and the Parrish Art Museum where she served on the museum’s art advisory committee, and premiered her documentary “Shared Ground,” made with the Shinnecock Nation. In the late 1970s, Saft taught lithography at Southampton College and collaborated with Elaine de Kooning, Connie Fox, and Bill King on a set of prints titled The Southampton Suite. De Kooning later helped arrange Saft’s first print show at The Benson Gallery in Bridgehampton. Saft later became a civic leader in East Moriches, helping to close an illegal compost dump in 2004. Her practice spans painting, sculpture, and video, with a consistent focus on emotional vulnerability, social connection, and the strange beauty of daily life.

The Arts Center at Duck Creek is at 127 Squaw Road in East Hampton. For more information, visit duckcreekarts.org.