'Figures Transformed' Highlights A Trio Of Artists At SAC

In “Figures Transformed,” a new exhibition that opened July 30 at Southampton Arts Center (SAC), on view is work by a trio of East End artists — all three of whom reference the figure in their work, but they each do so in very different and imaginative ways.

Curated by Christina Mossaides Strassfield, the exhibition, which is displayed both inside the galleries and outside on SAC’s West Lawn, includes the paintings of Deborah Buck, and sculptural pieces by Hal Buckner and Strong-Cuevas (the artist, whose first name is Elizabeth, uses only her last name professionally).

While Buck relies on anthropomorphic and imaginary figures to create her other-worldly environments, Buckner’s wall sculptures reference familiar figures from art history books. Many of his works are crafted from a single piece of aluminum that is manipulated to create outlines that pay homage to some of the most famous works of art in the world — DaVinci’s “Last Supper,” for example, or Rembrandt’s “The Dutch Masters” and even the Biblical figures depicted by Michelangelo on the ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican — but with women standing in for the original male figures. Meanwhile, Strong-Cuevas’s sculptures focus primarily on the figure’s head, referencing inner consciousness, outer space and communication through space and time.

For Strassfield, when taken as a whole, the three artists bring a unique, vibrant and divergent perspective of the figure to a Southampton space that she has long wanted to curate.

“This is the first time I’ve worked in this space,” explained Strassfield, who is the museum director and chief curator at Guild Hall in East Hampton. “I’ve been a visitor many times to SAC, and I’d been asked to curate in the past, but it was never the correct time with my schedule.”

But now, with Guild Hall currently undergoing an extensive renovation, there are no on-site exhibitions planned for the museum until at least 2023, meaning Strassfield’s time has freed up a bit to enable her to take on the curator role for this show at SAC.

“This year is more relaxed,” she said.

Now that she has had a chance to finally curate a show for the SAC space, which was originally built in the late 1890s to house the art collection of Southampton resident Samuel Parrish, Strassfield admits she is impressed by the building.

“It’s a beautiful space. The proportion of the galleries is lovely and it’s been a pleasure to work in,” said Strassfield. “The scale of the walls, the proportion, the back transept gallery — it’s an usual configuration but I think it works well. There are three distinct spaces, those allow you to choose and highlight the art that works best.”

In conjunction with “Figures Transformed,” on Sunday, August 21, at 4 p.m., Strassfield will lead a discussion at SAC with Buck, Buckner and Strong-Cuevas all taking part. When asked how she selected these three specific artists for the exhibition, Strassfield explains that it all began with a request from one of them.

“SAC approached Strong-Cuevas first and she said she’d only do the show if I curated it,” said Strassfield, who had curated a previous show with her. “Then they had mentioned some other artists they were interested in. I picked Hal, because I also had done a show with him and I picked Deborah Buck because I had been following her work and thought it would go well with the others in terms of figures.

“The three of them have sort of distinct styles, but they play off each other nicely,” added Strassfield. “The show is also multi-generation. Elizabeth, who lives in Amagansett, is in her 90s, Hal is in Water Mill and in his 80s and Deborah is in Sagaponack and in her 60s. We all went to dinner together, had a cocktail party together and a luncheon together. It’s really fun. They each have a respect for one another’s work and their process and commitment to the work.”

In speaking about each of the artist’s work, Strassfield notes that Buckner’s wall sculptures are very strong, aesthetically, but they ascribe to the “less is more” philosophy.

“Hal’s work is definitely focused on the line and the outline of the image,” she said. “I love the idea of sculpture on the wall. It hearkens back to the Egyptian days and the shadow becomes the third dimension. To reduce everything to the least amount of lines you can handle is important and some of his pieces are created with one direct line and no breaks whatsoever, which I think is unusual.

“The pieces I selected also go back to art history,” she added. “Hal taught in Tacoma on the college level. He was a welder and when he got MS, he had to work with something lighter.”

That something lighter was the medium of aluminum, which Buckner now uses to craft his reimagined famous works of art with a feminine twist.

“This worked beautifully for him. He has a reverence for art history, but it’s tongue in cheek in that all the figures are of women,” said Strassfield. “It’s the empowerment of women and there’s a lot going on in them. As he said, ‘If you have a male chest, there’s nothing to anchor all the pieces together.’ He loves the female form and there’s a wonderful quality to it.”

Among Buckner’s catalog of works, those that Strassfield most wanted to show in this exhibition are the pieces that make up his Sistine Chapel collection.

“This is the first time they’ve been shown in the U.S. in that scale on the wall. I’m really pleased with how it looks,” she said.

Sharing gallery space with Buckner’s art at SAC are the paintings of Deborah Buck, an artist Strassfield said she first became aware of about six years ago.

“It’s so vibrant and energetic, and she’s also aware of art history,” said Strassfield of Buck’s pieces in the show. “There are references to ancient art, African art, Egyptian art. It has a wonderful feeling. She uses layers and layers of paint until the subject emerges, then she contains it with black, a line — a heavy outline — around the figures or form.

“The work felt wonderful in and of itself,” added Strassfield. “When I picked her as the third artist in the show, her work has color and energy and it went so well in the middle gallery adjacent to Hal’s work, which doesn’t have color.”

Strassfield notes that as an artist, Strong-Cuevas has long focused on the head in her figurative sculptural works, which, despite having a very contemporary feel, reference ancient art forms.

“Elizabeth always used the head as an element of the human form. Her work deals with time traveling and thought processing, the yin and yang of it,” said Strassfield. “Her work is very totemic. She’s studied ancient art, Egyptian art and her medium is aluminum, bronze and stainless steel. In recent years, she transformed the outline of the head and used it in so many different ways.

“I find that her work is strong, passionate, empowering — as a woman, she’s creating something like the Easter Island heads or Egyptian obelisks,” Strassfield added. “She’s done these forms for 50 years. She is definitely influenced by Asian art, the minimal line, like Hal, and it’s something she uses in her drawings.”

At Sunday’s curator’s panel, Strassfield said that she is looking forward to getting all three of the show’s artists together and throwing out a series of questions related to their careers, the challenges they have faced and the inspiration behind their work.

“I’d love for it to be a conversation and a Q&A to bring different together different generations and walks of life,” said Strassfield.

The “Figures Transformed,” panel discussion led by curator Christina Mossaides Strassfield with artists Deborah Buck, Hal Buckner and Strong-Cuevas is Sunday, August 21, at 4 p.m. at Southampton Arts Center, 25 Jobs Lane, Southampton. “Figures Transformed” remains on view through September 24. The exhibition will serve as the backdrop to SAC’s annual SummerFest Gala on Thursday, September 1, at 6 p.m. which will honor Helena and Rob Vahradian with the 2022 Champions of the Arts Award. For more information about the exhibition or for tickets to SummerFest, visit southamptonartscenter.org.