'Visual Vernacular' at Canio’s

Canio’s Gallery is gearing up for “Visual Vernacular,” an art exhibition curated by distinguished East End gallerist Arlene Bujese. The show runs June 29 through July 29 and will open with a reception on Friday, June 30, from 5 to 7 p.m. and features work by a diverse range of several well-known East End artists, including Abby Abrams, Shari Abramson, Sheila Batiste, Darlene Charneco, Eric Ernst, William King, Susan Lazarus Reimen, Dennis Leri, Fulvio Massi, Barry McCallion, Charles Yoder and Lewis Zacks.

For Bujese, “Visual art has a unique language.” In choosing individual works by the artists, she looked to create a dialogue among the pieces in the show to underscore the unique language that art encourages.

These artists share their inspirations.

Sheila Batiste’s work blends the factual and interruptive in searching for the “adventure” of growing up in a segregated, political environment. She writes of an old book as inspiration for her art, “I have a copy of the little known fable by George Bernard Shaw, ‘The Adventures Of The Black Girl and Her Search for God,’ written in 1933. Through reflection of the past … the layering of images/memories, I question, where does a Black girl belong?”

Susan Lazurus-Reiman is a painter, printmaker and mixed media artist. Her works are “narrative in nature — a visual storytelling — using words/phrases, images, cultural symbols/objects as well as ephemera. As prose does, they have a rhythm & flow.”

Fulvio Massi’s paintings proceed from sensations. They are “a stratification of events, a representation of time, an accumulation of different temporalities … evoking the ebb and flow of life.”

Shari Abramson’s “Throat Poems” are a collage of found phrases combined. Her paintings are an expression of an inner dialogue; together they express what often is not voiced.

Arlene Bujese is a visual artist who has owned and operated galleries on the East End for over 20 years, both in Southampton and East Hampton. She is an esteemed arts consultant and has worked with many museums and galleries on the East End and regionally. Bujese is currently on the Board of East End Hospice, and serving her 22nd year as chair of its Box Art Benefit.

Canio’s Cultural Café is at 290 Main Street, Sag Harbor. For more information, visit caniosculturalcafe.org.