The Eastville Community Historical Society is presenting the work of Sag Harbor artist Sabina Streeter in a solo summer exhibition titled “The Age of Allure.” The opening reception for the show will be Saturday, July 25, at noon.
“The Age of Allure” is a natural continuum of Streeter’s historically-based exhibitions of sea-faring and whaling Village figures including “Captains, Mates and Widows”(2014), “Sister Sailors and Sons of Sag Harbor” (2015), and “The Five Wives of Captain Hand: A Maritime Melodrama” (2017). “The Age of Allure highlights the African American and Native American residents of Sag Harbor’s Eastville community in the 19th century.
“Eastville Community Historical Society director Dr. Georgette Grier invited me about a year ago to work on a series of portraits based on tintypes that had been found beneath the floorboards of the former Eastville studio of photographer W.G Howard,” explained Streeter. “The portraits were exhibited in a wonderful 2014 show entitled ‘Collective Identities’ — of which I have based my work.”
Streeter added that she was “immensely honored to create these portraits. In these challenging times, to illustrate and emphasize the depth and diversity of our local history is more important than ever before. I hope I have done some justice to the Eastville community with this series of paintings.”
Streeter, a native of Munich, Germany, is a contemporary artist whose portraits are based in classical traditions and include an extraordinarily diverse range of present and historical figures. In her work, she enlarges reality, then cuts to the emotional with an unblinking clarity of detail. Her art dramatizes issues of history, popular culture, and universal longing. The freely gestural strokes are executed in charcoal, pastel, gouache , oils and result in a movement between figurative painting and abstraction.
The Eastville Community Historical Society is at 139 Hampton Street, Sag Harbor.
Staff Writer on Jul 21, 2020