Exhibits at Pierre's and Galerie Merz

While many viewers may have become accustomed to a slightly different visual experience when seeing works at, say, a restaurant such as Pierre’s in Bridgehampton, it can seem a bit surprising when one reacts in the same way upon entering Gallery Merz in Sag Harbor, a space that heretofore would have been classified as a traditional gallery but has recently gone off in some unusual new directions.

With paintings stacked three and four deep and sales tags hanging from the works on the walls, Gallery Merz, while still somewhat redolent of the tone of a normal gallery, also summons other images, at least for this reviewer, mostly as a hybrid of an artist’s storage space and an extremely upscale garage sale.

Apparently the result of a merger between RVS Gallery in Southampton (sometimes whimsically referred to as Gallery Muhs, after Jeff Muhs, one of the principal artists in the RVS stable) and the continuing brain trust at Merz in Sag Harbor, the effect is somewhat disconcerting for anyone looking for a clean and unencumbered view of the works on display. Also, visitors are advised to be careful not to back up too much to get a longer view of a given painting, as there isn’t a lot of space in which to maneuver.

Of particular interest is a succession of small watercolor nudes and studies of women by Kevin Berlin that are seemingly related in tone and spirit to his recent installation, titled “Slaves of Fashion.” Placed in the gallery on the shelves of an imposing black bookcase, the works are notable for their offhand sensuality and gestural spontaneity.

Offering an interestingly complementary tone to Mr. Berlin’s works are Kim-so’s “Koi” (oil on canvas) as well as a rather strangely painted oriental screen on top of the bookcase, all surrealistically reflected in the highly polished surfaces of Alex Kveton’s sculptures, such as “Gone with the Wind” (stainless steel).

Also of note is a series of larger canvases by Ella Giova that makes powerful use of the juxtaposition of vibrant colors and a confident and dynamic emphasis on negative space, allowing her playful slashes of color to float in indeterminate space like abstract butterflies caught on a summer’s breeze.

The current configuration of works at Gallery Merz in Sag Harbor continues into the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, Pierre’s in Bridgehampton is presenting an exhibition of paintings by Bobbie Braun that are ostensibly landscape works with decidedly East End atmospherics, but are actually more accurately seen as painterly studies of the skies rather than of the earth.

Titled “Point of View” and curated by Terri Kennedy and Andrea McCafferty, the exhibit features works that are interesting for their use of terrestrial imagery, even though the dunes and dune grass seem to have been included more to provide a foil for Ms. Braun’s carefully rendered clouds than as objects of profound compositional focus in and of themselves.

This effect is most immediately apparent in works such as “Dreamscape #2” (oil on canvas) in which rolling hills physically occupy the majority of canvas space, yet the prevailing emphasis within the work is on the clouds that dominate the distant horizon line.

The technique is even more evident in other works such as “Path to the Sea” and “Wainscott in Bloom” (both oil on canvas) in which the bucolic scenery offers itself as a compositional contrivance through which the eye is drawn. But these pathways rarely provide the same kind of drama that the artist creates in her rendering of an atmospherically emotional juxtaposition of light and color in the skies over her landscapes.

This aesthetic relief reaches as apogee of sorts in a series of works titled “Above the Clouds,” in which Ms. Braun ignores the earth completely, creating instead the kind of puffy and evocative landscape one sees when looking out an aircraft window at an endless bed of sunlit clouds passing below.

The exhibition of paintings by Bobbie Braun continues at Pierre’s Restaurant in Bridgehampton through October 10.