Destination Art: Alex Ferrone Gallery Cultivates Curious Community of Art Lovers

It’s been 11 years since Alex Ferrone opened her eponymous art gallery in a historic farmhouse in Cutchogue. Her purpose, at the time, was to advance the recognition of photographic art as fine art on the East End.

In the decade-plus she’s been at it, Ferrone says she’s learned a lot about what it takes run a successful gallery.

She’s also done a fair amount of teaching others.

“When they come here, our audience gets an education,” Ferrone declared during a recent interview about the gallery.

“If they want one, I mean,” she was quick to add.

Sharing knowledge — be it through casual conversation with visitors, formal artist talks or art workshops — has always been top of mind for Ferrone. The gallery’s focus on such outreach has only grown through the years. Exhibiting artists, visiting artists and even art critics regularly appear at Ferrone events along with audiences eager to learn.

“What I like most about (Alex) is her ability to stimulate the community. She’s truly involved with helping to educate people on what the art is about. … The talks they have, I call them salon talks, are so enlightening,” Sag Harbor printmaker Dan Welden said. “I’ve attended many of them and been honored to be one of the special guests and her audiences are so responsive and interactive.”

According to Weldon, the Ferrone Gallery has cultivated a curious audience with an appetite for exploring new art and artists.

“Sometimes she has very notable people there who are extremely knowledgeable about art and very articulate about the subject and … the conversations are not a one-way street,” Welden said.

“That’s one of the things that stands out to me about [the gallery].”

Among Ferrone’s special guests has been art writer and critic Charles Riley, who is also director of the Nassau County Museum of Art.

Situated on Main Road, across the street from a country club and tucked amid the North Fork’s wineries, inns and farm stands, the gallery is “a destination,” Ferrone said. There is no such thing as foot traffic in the area, so visitors “aren’t just floating in here, they’re driving here specifically.”

When they enter the two-story building, a renovated farmhouse-turned carpenters workshop-turned office, they are greeted by a bright, light-filled space organized in three sections and Alex Ferrone herself. Day-to-day operations are largely a one-woman show and the owner — by her own description — loves to chat.

“We’re happy to help anyone who comes here understand what they’re looking at and what the artist is presenting,” Ferrone said.

Until July 9, the gallery is featuring an exhibit called Urbanesque III. As the name suggests, it is the third installment of a show featuring works made by artists from New York City with urban subjects and themes. The show contains mixed media photographic composites from artist Linda Hacker, whose work also appeared in Urbanesque II, and paintings by Cora Jane Glasser Hacker’s pieces demonstrate an evolution from those included in the previous show, which were “full of intentional camera movement and double exposures,” by adding a layer of complexity and abstraction through paper collage.

Glasser’s pieces are inspired by construction sites and the city’s historic vault lights, prisms embedded in the sidewalks in the 19th century to provide light to basements in SoHo and Tribeca, among other things.

“The city can have a tendency to be chaotic, but there doesn’t seem to be any chaos in this work,” Ferrone said. “And the two mediums complement each other nicely.”

The gallery’s next exhibit, A Glacial Event, begins July 15 and will be comprised of landscape photography from John Paul Caponigro and Ryland West and landscape painter Eleanor Goldstein. Caponigro’s work depicting Antarctica and West’s photographs of Alaska’s glaciers relate to Goldstein’s “icescapes” in relation to climate change, Ferrone said.

“They’ve all visited and worked to capture the essence of this places where they have seen the effects of climate change and the pieces,” the owner said.

The gallery will hold a reception and collection of artists talks on July 29, from 4 to 7 p.m.

Ferrone’s approach to assembling a show at the gallery starts with her feeling of connection to an artist’s work, whether or not she has any actual connection to the artist.

“I’ll find an artist whose work moves me in some way and then I set it aside until another comes along that I think compliments the other. I don’t start with a theme,” Ferrone explained.

The idea for A Glacial Event began when Ferrone saw Caponigro’s work.

“So, we ‘had him’ and then this was a process for me, this time. I really searched out artists to compliment his work and it took a long time,” she said. “All three artists have something impactful to say about climate change and how they’ve witnessed it.”

Caponigro, who met Ferrone virtually when he agreed to be a jurist for one of the gallery’s small works exhibitions on landscape last year, said he is looking forward to visiting the East End — and the Alex Ferrone Gallery — for the first time.

“I’m looking forward to having interesting conversations with people in the community Alex has gathered,” he added.

Ferrone, an accomplished photographer herself, opened the gallery in 2012 exclusively for photographic art. Three years ago, she decided to open the space up to all other mediums to expand the gallery’s audience.

“The reason we opened the gallery at the time we did was I felt photography was not well represented on Long Island. There was Tulla Booth in Sag Harbor, and she was great, and there were some galleries who represented well, such as Vered in East Hampton, but overall, I thought we needed more,” Ferrone said.

The owner said she showed her own work at the soft opening of the gallery because she didn’t yet have connections with other artists. That soon changed.

Now, Ferrone only shows her own work in an outbuilding on the property affectionately referred to as “The Barn.” She refuses to put her own pieces in the main gallery space.

“I didn’t open the gallery for me. I show my work as much as I can, but not here, except in The Barn,” she explained. “And I always forget to send people out there. It’s so ridiculous,” she added with a laugh.

During its run, the Alex Ferrone Gallery has shown work by celebrated nautical photographer Onne van der Wal, Irish landscape photographer David Magee and well known portrait photographer Linda K. Alpern, whose work is on permanent display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. Featured painters have included landscape artist Adam Straus, enamel painter Scott McIntire and abstract painter Constance Sloggatt Wolf and multidisciplinary artists such as Seung Lee, Winn Rea, Carolyn Conrad, Qin Han, Nijole Kudirka, and Ennid Berger.

Ferrone opened the gallery with her partner, Realtor and real estate appraiser Richard Abatelli, who has an office on the second floor of the building. Abatelli often assists with assembling shows, greeting guests and helping with the public events and is, Ferrone said, her biggest supporter and sounding board.

“They work beautifully together,” Welden said of the pair.

In the coming months, Ferrone is planning workshops for yet more community art education. Possible topics include iPhone and smart phone photography, photographic transfers and watercolors.

“The gallery really is a challenge, but it’s so fun,” Ferrone said. “I love the challenge. This is a labor of love.

“This is our 11th year, and we are learning so much. It’s incredible what people have to offer.”

The Alex Ferrone Gallery is open from Friday through Sunday, from noon to 5 p.m., or by appointment. For more information, visit alexferronegallery.com.