Three autumn exhibitions keep arts scene lively after Labor Day

While it used to be said that the end of the summer season meant that the art scene on the East End began a descent into autumnal torpor, this is certainly no longer the case, as is evidenced by exhibitions at three separate spaces stretching from Springs to Southampton.

At Ashawagh Hall in Springs is the annual “Vito Sisti Presents,” an event that has come to mark the official end of the seasonal onslaught of serial killers driving SUVs with Jersey plates while also serving as a gauge for the continued vitality of the fabled local artist community.

At one point featuring relatively few artists by comparison with most shows in this space, the exhibition has grown over the years to the point that it has lost some measure of discretionary exclusivity and also limits Mr. Sisti’s curatorial thematic options. That said, it should also be noted that the space itself has expanded over the years and the inflated number of exhibitors creates a more legitimate community oriented ambiance.

Interestingly, aside from his role as organizational overseer, Mr. Sisti is also featured prominently in the personage of a strikingly life-like and life-size (which is to say vertically challenged) mechanically animated figure. Constructed by artist Trish Franey, whose work has always veered toward a sort of surreal whimsy that is both childish and entertainingly menacing, the work is an homage to Mr. Sisti, whose efforts over the years on behalf of the local artist community are widely admired, as well as a suggestion of what Mr. Sisti might have looked like when he had a fuller head of hair.

Also featured, among many others, are Scott Partlow, James DeMartis, James Kennedy, Kristi Hood, Susan Burton (with Tommy Lagrassa), Kris Warrenburg, Marcie Honerkamp, Mark Perry, Abby Abrams, and Haim Mizrahi. The exhibit continues at Ashawagh Hall in Springs through September 19.

Traveling west to Bridgehampton, the Miranova Gallery is currently featuring works by Nathan Slate Joseph, Robert Datuna, and Robert Bery.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Mr. Joseph’s wall pieces is in his use of metal to create painterly motifs that juxtapose geometry and coloration and end up straddling the line between two- and three-dimensional perspectives.

Stripping the surface of all that is superfluous and unnecessary, the artist leaves viewers to ponder the subtle relationships in color and tone, while the lines of solder joining the pieces of metal serve to orchestrate the composition as they weave over and across the surface of the works.

While Mr. Joseph’s works reflect a rather urban grittiness in both texture and tone, David Datuna’s large assemblages evoke a different kind of urban sensibility that is decidedly more immediately playful while also reflecting aspects of modern life and pop culture. At his most effective, as in his American flag with the stars and stripes made of advertisements and newspaper strips viewed through a diverse collection of broken eyeglasses, Mr. Datuna offers a subtle statement on the superficiality of social convention while also constructing a dynamic surface composition that is visually arresting and rhythmically engaging.

Robert Bery’s paintings and photographs are significantly more enigmatic, although, on some levels, he mines a sense of ironic detachment similar to that found in Mr. Datuna’s pieces. This is particularly apparent in his photograph, “The Pink Shoes,” and is also evident in his “Portrait of a Woman,” which appears less a psychological portrait than an abstract cross between a fingerprint and a topographical map.

At the gallery at 4 North Main Street in Southampton, well-known local artist Paton Miller has curated an exhibit of painters that is decidedly stylistically diverse, yet, due to Mr. Miller’s rather discerning arrangement of the works, never becomes conceptually disjointed or visually cluttered.

Of particular interest are hand carved ice-fishing lures by Aage Bjerring that reflect both a remarkable measure of craftsmanship as well as an inventiveness that allows the works to transcend derisive classification as mere “craft.”

Also of interest is a series of Aboriginal influenced paintings by Wray McGowin drawing on a powerful balance between color and rhythms that is especially effective in abstract works such as “Nine Eyes” and “Crop Circles.”

In other pieces, such as “Three Angels,” Mr. McGowin contrasts dancing patterns of coloration with a background that, in its painterly mannerisms, is reminiscent of Mr. Miller’s own painterly tendencies in the way the artist has overpainted various hues and then scraped them away to reveal the colors beneath.