'Flock of Genius' at Keyes Art

Keyes Art in Sag Harbor opens “Flock of Genius,” a new show featuring the work of Rainer Andressen, Cornelia Foss, Warren McHugh, Rozeal, Tammy Smith and Edith Vonnegut, with a reception on Saturday, June 29, from 5 to 7 p.m. The show will remain on view through July 12.

“The combination of what we see and what we imagine is never as close as the artist’s eye. Here we live amongst those hosting a foot into each world and able to express it,” said gallery owner Julie Keyes.

Rozeal brings together Asian and African-American aesthetic traditions in diverse, multimedia painting and collages, fusing imagery of Japanese woodcutting, geishas, and kabuki with modern hip-hop and vogue-ing figures. The artist’s revisiting of Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro’s imagery and shunga, the erotic prints of late-Edo Japan, sparkled the series’ focus on representations of sensuality and sexuality. Even today, the artist posits, these themes are often presented as merely a barrage of images, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Rozeal earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Yale University in 2002 and has had solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C.

Warren McHugh, a Sag Harbor hero, carved the community, the illustrious local and international art scene. The historical figures, the writers, the artists that changed the art world and lived in Sag Harbor were his subjects.

Considered by many to be a gifted though unrecognized folk artist, McHugh viewed himself as “a people’s artist” because he sold his hand-crafted pine wood-carvings at prices that all could afford.

He opened The Art Stall, a diminutive Madison Street gallery and bookstore, in 1961 and sold pieces each summer until he died from cancer in 1986. It represented a piece of historic Sag Harbor during the 1960s and 1970s where local craftsmen sold their art to locals, tourists and art collectors alike. Before his death, McHugh was showing in both New York City and East End galleries.

He was a featured artist at the American Folk Art Museum’s “Nautical Folk Artists of Today” and his work was frequently shown at Guild Hall in East Hampton.

Tammy Smith is a rising artist noted for her distinctive creations inspired by animals. Smith’s singular style is both evocative and whimsical. A resident of Marblehead, Massachusetts, she has worked as a dog sitter and described the process of painting a dog and sitting for one as similar. Smith uses bold strokes, splashes of vivid color, and as a printmaker employs such materials as India ink, acrylics, and phosphorescent ink.

“There’s an ongoing dialogue,” she joked, in an interview with Wicked Local Marblehead.

Cornelia Foss, a painterly realist, has been painting for over half a century, as is evident by her sure hand and elegant use of color. She paints what she sees, the beaches and landscapes of the Hamptons, the garden of her Long Island home, views of Central Park.

Featured in numerous solo and group shows, both nationally and internationally, her work is featured in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the National Museum for Women, Guild, the Burchfield Penny Art Center, the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. among many other public and private collections.

In her artist’s statement, Edith Vonnegut says, “My aim is to rewrite the history of women as I think we have been portrayed incorrectly from Eve on. I’m here to herald the unheralded and bring majesty to the mundane. I’ve always painted angels, though that’s a mystery as I was raised agnostic bordering on atheist but have a sneaking feeling there is more to this world than meets the eye.

“I am more of an illustrator than a painter and proud of it. I begged my parents to send me to apprentice with Norman Rockwell but he was not taking students. Then I begged them to send me to Italy to study with the masters, but they told me they were all dead, so I dropped in and out of multiple art schools and consider myself self-taught by getting too close to masterpieces in museums and studying books with titles like ‘Painting Techniques of the Masters.’ I want to make paintings that are beautiful, with humor and that are about something.”

Rainer Andressen starts his paintings with a rough drawing, then takes photographs of his subject matter and pieces them together in the right composition. A small study usually follows from the sketched composition. He will begin drawing out the shapes on the surface that suits the painting best.

A thin oil sketch is followed by blocking in with a thicker layer to allow the light values to be determined. The third layer is usually the most intense, which involves a powerful creativity and focus on brush work. Last touches build the fourth complete and final layer.

His work is in the collections Alan Alda, Martin Short, Rosie O’Donnell, Clive Davis, Nathan Lane and many more.

Keyes Art is at 45 Main Street in Sag Harbor. Visit juliekeyesart.com.