Nick Weber Shares Intimate Moments in Painting People

Amagansett artist Nick Weber’s solo exhibition Eighteen Years of Painting People opens this weekend at QF Gallery in East Hampton.

This retrospective of nearly two decades demonstrates Weber’s ability to capture the intimate exchange between artist and model—the shared moments exploring his subject and medium while they also experience him. The work radiates with light and softness, and reveals Weber’s love of paint—how he experiments with it directly on each canvas.

“Most of his pieces are years in the making, and the layers of paint, sanded, painted and re-sanded many times over,” QF Gallery owner Chantel Foretich explains, adding, “The figures and scenes at one’s fingertips are gorgeous and real, as much as they are shrouded and inaccessible.” For this exhibition, Foretich chose paintings that best show Weber’s process and his relationship with paint and person. “He is drawn to the mysterious things about people, especially when a model is with him in his studio.”

Weber lived and worked in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood before moving to Amagansett full time in 2002. He acknowledged the many “generous” souls who sat for him over the years in New York and the East End, remarking, “[It’s] an old fashioned thing to pose for a painting—to pose for a friend. It’s a nice way to spend time together.”

The artist has grabbed headlines in recent years for his controversial series of sexually explicit and near photo-realistic paintings of internet pornography, but his figurative work, humanist portraits and moody nocturnal landscapes are equally, if not more, powerful without the help of shock. Weber’s pornographic work was published in a monograph called Broadband this fall and is currently on display in a solo show of the same name at Res Ipsa in Oakland, California through January 11.

Weber received his BFA from Stanford University in 1993. His exhibits include solo and group shows at the late John McWhinnie in New York City and East Hampton, as well as exhibits at the Fireplace Project in East Hampton and Scope Hamptons Art Fair. Weber’s work is collected by Richard Prince, Lisa de Kooning, Phil Aarons and Glenn Horowitz, and portrait commissions include Betsey Johnson and Abercrombie & Fitch. He is also represented by Tripoli Gallery of Contemporary Art in Southampton.

Eighteen Years of Painting People opens at 1 p.m. on Saturday, November 24 as part of ArtWalk Hamptons and will run through December 30. QF Gallery is open Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. and by appointment at 98 Newtown Lane in East Hampton. Call 347-324-6619 or visit www.qfgallery.com for more.