'On The Edge' at The White Room Gallery

The White Room Gallery’s next exhibition, “On The Edge,” runs May 21 to June 16 and opens with a reception on Saturday, May 25, from 5 to 7 p.m.

The show will feature work by the South African artist Fringe, and in “The Black Room” of the gallery, on view will be work by graffiti artist Seek One.

Fringe, South Africa’s most renowned pop artist painter/sculptor who exhibits worldwide and is represented exclusively in the U.S by The White Room Gallery, sends a message of reflection hidden in a visual of love and playfulness that seamlessly connects the past to the present. His large-scale artworks on canvas celebrate humanity with each weaving together an impactful, one-of-a-kind story with the assistance of an ever-changing cast of world-famous pop characters. Incorporating icons, symbols, slogans, and a wild imagination, he challenges the viewer to assess the American journey.

Seek One is a mixed media artist who started on the edge with spray can in hand but soon ventured into the fine art arena where he found his voice by fusing known and unknown figures with vintage media and graffiti. The White Room was one of the first galleries to recognize his talent and eight years later, he has become collected worldwide. In his most recent works, he has moved away from the figurative and brought his distinctive graffiti style to the forefront in a series of vivid abstracts that balance beauty, power and flow into stylized compositions.

“Pushing the boundaries is what has defined the art movement since its inception and that push has often paid off as recently evidenced by Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ aka a urinal selling for 1.85 million,” noted the gallery’s curators, Andrea McCafferty and Kat O’Neill. “But it has been the pop art movement of the last seventy years that has truly used the lexicon of life to expand, explore and redefine the norm with history and culture being recycled into evocative, and at times, entertaining narratives.

“Of course, every artist searches to find their voice but the voices of the two artists showcased in this exhibit ring singularly true in their mission to be on the edge,” they continued. “In curating this exhibit one fact became abundantly clear. While living on the edge commands a certain amount of confidence, creating on the edge commands a fearless approach to originality.”

Other artists with work on view in “On The Edge” are: Artlord, Rich Bollinger, Josh Mayhem, Taylor Smith and others. Artists included in the gallery’s permanent collection are: Russell Young, Nelson De La Nuez, Craig Alan, Markus Klinko, Greg Lotus and Punk Me Tender.

The White Room Gallery is located at 3 Railroad Avenue in East Hampton. For more information, visit thewhiteroom.gallery.