Christopher Lucore & His Gallery Continue to Evolve in Montauk

Four years after he opened The Lucore Art in Montauk (87 S. Euclid Avenue), painter and curator Christopher Lucore is taking stock of his accomplishments in the East End arts scene and embarking on a new phase of his evolution as an artist.

“One of my problems with this year was that I had been doing so much show curation that I felt like I didn’t do enough painting,” Lucore says, explaining that he’s curated or consulted on numerous exhibitions over the past year or so — and not only for his gallery — which left him with less time for making his own work. Despite this, the pieces he did create represented a shift forward visually and in the way he approaches the process itself.

Since opening The Lucore Art in spring of 2021, Lucore has held regular shows, rotating his artists on view every three weeks between March and December, but the space also serves as his personal studio, and he’s made great strides with the work. What began as abstracts using traditional painting techniques has developed into a unique style of collage using dried acrylic paint — and even that method has changed over time to become more instinctive and in the moment.

“What I’ve been doing now is using these blobs, which allows me to be more free form, like I don’t have to make a sketch of what I’m going to do beforehand,” he says, pointing out that he initially sketched out the designs he wanted to make, and then cut the peeled acrylic paint sheets to fit his plan. Now, however, he cuts out forms beforehand and plays with them on the canvas until a perfect composition takes shape.

The size of Lucore’s paintings has also grown significantly, with pieces on unstretched canvas going from 48 x 60 inches all the way up to 6 x 8 feet and 4 x 12 feet. And the results are spectacular. “Now, regardless of how big the canvas is, I have all this inventory of pieces, and I can start moving them around, thinking about how the colors are distributed around the canvas, how the things are turned and how they interact. So, it sort of allows me to sketch directly in the large scale,” he says, noting that his subconscious will often surprise him when he looks at his painting the following day. “I’ll be looking at it, and I’ll sort of get to discover what it is as I’m working on it, or what it is to me, at least,” Lucore continues, explaining that his painting “Divine Connection,” for example, appears to him like “two angels having sex.”

Each of these large paintings can take Lucore about 200 hours over the course of a month.

In addition to excelling at his own work, Lucore has had some fantastic shows at his gallery, and he’s become an indispensable member of the local art community, especially in Montauk where he regularly helps install and curate shows for other galleries and artists. He also got to show his work at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair for the first time this year via Ross Contemporary, which he helped install at the massive and important local fair. “I always said I wasn’t going to go until I was going as an exhibiting artist,” Lucore recalls, pleased that he accomplished yet another goal on his long list.

“This year I got to do the Springs Invitational. That was the big show in the middle of the year, 124 artists. And then besides that, I just try to keep my connections with the other local venues really strong. Working with the Depot, I installed all of their shows. Working with Dalton (Portella) at 484 (Gallery), installing for him, working with Haim (Mizrahi) at LTV, installing for him,” Lucore says. “And then recently, I’ve been getting a lot more calls to help people with their solo shows at Ashawagh Hall. So, you know, somebody will rent out the hall, and then they’ll give me a call and say, ‘Can you help me hang everything?’ I think I’ve had about, like, 45 to 50 show installation opportunities this year. It’s been like, nonstop.”

Currently, The Lucore Art is showing Guided By Time, co-curated by Lucore and artist Haim Mizrahi with art by both men, plus works by Imani Bilal, Anahi DeCanio, Fanyu Lin, Anne Raymond, Steven Romm and Chris Kelly. The show is on view through November 29.

Visit thelucoreart.com to see what’s on view now, what’s coming up at the gallery, and to learn more about Christopher Lucore and his work.