A Delightful Detour

Thirteen East End artists from both the North and South forks will come together for an exhibition of painting, sculpture, and photography. “Detour” presented by East End Arts, opens Saturday, June 1, from 4 to 7 PM at two locations: 133 E. Main Street and 11 W. Main Street in Riverhead. It will also be on view Sunday, June 2, from 11 AM to 5 PM at the Glen Hansen Studio at 1560 Youngs Avenue in Southold and all three locations will be on view through August 25.

East End Arts serves the five towns of eastern Long Island as a multi-award not-for-profit arts organization, located in downtown Riverhead.

“Detour marks a celebration of a new and exciting direction for East End Arts and Riverhead,” said Diane Burke, executive director, East End Arts Council. “It is our invitation, to those traveling further out on either the South Fork or the North Fork, as well as residents, to take a turn, a possible detour, into downtown Riverhead to see this landmark exhibition. After all, the forks converge in Riverhead.”

The exhibit is curated by Glen Hansen with assistance from Adam Straus. The two met three years ago as part of Paton Miller’s East End Collected show at the Southampton Arts Center. From there, they began weekly meet-ups, called Brewery Boys, at Greenport Harbor Brewing Company, and a working relationship was established. President of EEA, John McLane approached Hansen in 2018 to discuss doing a show.

“It is a detour for East End Arts in Riverhead in terms of what they have done in the past, and I think often Riverhead in general is seen as a detour or somewhere many folks out here simply go for Home Depot. I think there are probably many people on both forks that haven’t even been to downtown Riverhead at all. So, it is our small contribution to trying to change that,” explained Straus.

Hansen chose the artists with a few suggestions from Straus. With a smorgasbord of talent to choose from, they unanimously decided to keep it limited for the sake of space, with hopes to continue doing collective shows at EEA “that involve a larger community of artists.” This year, in addition to Miller, Hansen, and Straus, participating artists include Meghan Boody, Stephen Capozzoli, Louise Crandell, Connie Fox, Charles McGill, Steve Martinez, Franklin Hill Perrell, Carol Saft, Arden Scott, and Allan Wexler.

“The fog and the atmospherics out here have inspired me since first visiting Montauk from the city in the mid-’90s. They are quite different than those of which I grew up with in South Florida. There’s always this mystery in the fog. It’s beautiful, but if you are out in it on the water, or even on land, there is a certain danger too,” Straus noted of his post-apocalyptic world depiction work, with a deep appreciation for the natural world.

Another artist involved, Perrell, curated the Nassau County Museum for decades and currently serves on the board of the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington. He has been known for painting iconic beachfront sites, having his first exhibit in Tribeca in the 1970s.

“I love the configuration of water on one side, land on the other,” said Perrell, noting he likes both the distinctive and inherent shape and color in evanescent things such as umbrellas and picnic items, or things that endure, such as buildings “Overall, it’s the natural designs from the horizon and these elements; but spiritually it’s a paradigm of potential unlimited freedom. Evidence of human activity pulls the spectator back into pragmatic references which are then evocative of the circumstances of people in proximity to the sea,” he noted of his work.

Visit www.eastendarts.com to learn more.

nicole@indyeastend.com