Darius Yektai’s ‘Darklight’ Portraits At Duck Creek

For the past 20 years, the self-portrait has played an important role in Darius Yektai’s work. He visits the subject periodically in his studio practice, usually on a small and intimate scale. The works are executed over time and serve as a place for the artist to unravel and reveal his emotions.

The Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs is pleased to announce “Darklight,” an exhibition of six large-scale self-portrait paintings by artist Darius Yektai. The show will be open to the public September 5-27, Thursday through Sunday, from 2 to 6 p.m. The artist will be present at the gallery on Sundays.

Yektai has noted that in his work, he draws on both his inner conflict and the challenges of the painting process to evoke an image that represents the parallels in both.

“These vessels of darkness are testaments to the sadnesses and difficulties of life, transmuted into hopefulness and achievement,” says Yektai.

In 2003, art critic Robert Long described Yektai’s small self-portraits in a Guild Hall Museum exhibition as “looking at Rembrandt with all the lights turned out.” This comment was a pivotal moment for Yektai, and he began pushing his own image deeper into the darkness and drawing more on his raw emotion.

It is Yektai’s intent that a conceptual shift takes place in this installation. That the viewer becomes as much the subject of the exhibition as the paintings themselves.

“Walking into this room and faced with these large dark totems brings the viewer back to themselves,” he says. “This is not about ego; this is about the human condition. We all experience these emotions. This is about life.”

As visitors sit in the shrine-like space of the Duck Creek barn surrounded by these dimly lit portraits, Yektai hopes the light they depict evokes the triumph over darkness that helped to create them.

Also at Duck Creek, on Friday, September 11, from 7 to 10 p.m., interdisciplinary artist Anthony Madonna and composer and audio producer Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones will present “Not What I imagined,” a sound installation within Yektai’s exhibition.

Composed of various field recordings, vocal improvisations, and journal entries, the piece situates the listener in the center of Madonna’s explorations of and mediations within the natural landscapes of the East End. Paired with Yektai’s “Darklight” paintings, the piece invites an intimate audience for an immersive multi-sensory experience; introspectively questioning human connection, stillness, and natural surroundings through visual and aural mediums.

Darius Yektai (b. 1973, Southampton, N.Y.) lives and works in Sag Harbor. He is greatly influenced by his father, Manoucher Yektai, a prominent Abstract Expressionist painter who emigrated to the U.S. from Iran after World War II. Yektai studied painting at San Diego State University and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from American University in Paris. He has shown extensively on the East End — including solo shows at Guild Hall in 2003 and multiple exhibitions at Tripoli Gallery. Recently, Yektai mounted an exhibition of paintings at Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor and his participation in the May Drive By Art Show organized by Warren Neidich, was featured prominently in the New York Times. For more information on the artist, visit dyektai.com.

Anthony Madonna is an interdisciplinary collaborative artist, educator, and administrator. Working within diverse contexts and communities he has led workshops, produced performance series and academic events, and showed/performed work within institutions such as Tate Modern, London, and The Juilliard York City, among other community focused centers. He currently serves as the inaugural Patti Kenner Fellow in Arts Education at Guild Hall of East Hampton.

Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones is a singer, songwriter, composer, and audio documentary maker. Rooted in storytelling, her work encompasses folklore, memory, voice, and intimacy. She is a Roundhouse Resident Artist alumni, and the founder of the Glasgow artist collective, Blue Tongue Collective.

The Arts Center at Duck Creek is located at 127 Squaw Road in East Hampton. Visit duckcreekarts.org for details.