Fall, in Love with Color — On The Bright Side at the White Room Gallery

Summer’s sun fades too fast, but don’t despair…On the Bright Side, consider the colors of changing leaves. Beauty is all around us, in shades and hues too many to mention, but we need the perspective to see it. Voted best gallery in the Hamptons, The White Room Gallery, is living up to the accolades with its latest exhibit “On the Bright Side.”

The opening reception was last Saturday, and art lovers and friends visited The White Room Gallery for fun cocktails served along with cupcakes and delightful conversations with the curators. If you missed it on Saturday, look on the bright side… the exhibit will run through November 13th! (This is the last time this pun is used.)

Curators Andrea McCafferty & Kat O’Neill always deliver a fresh take on the Hamptons’ fine art scene, and their latest exhibit does not disappoint. In anticipation of the opening reception, Kat gave me a sneak peek of the exhibit.

LINDA ZACKS is a powerful visual storyteller using paint and poetry. Her hopscotch approach to medium and convention imbues her work with a dynamic interplay between the grandiose and the granular. Her painting, ‘hustle’ is a dramatic and relentless expression of evocative exhaustion intimately exposed in mixed media on canvas.

JOHN JOSEPH HANRIGHT’s oversized ensembles of Americana iconography encased in enamel—flags, the female form, family—are nostalgic, if not haunted. Colorfully and playfully, the pop images, well, pop within the shining resin. Yet, the thickness of the lacquer encases and entombs the images, like a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth suspended in amber. 

JACK FLO’s hand-painted collages are an exciting new perspective on fame and the shared language of celebrity—retold in pastiche-layered chaos. His mixed-media paintings remind us that we each have our own collage of perspective. The skill in creativity and the exceptionally strong painting mechanics are unmistakable and elevate the well-loved tradition of celebrity collaging into a fine art space.

CRAIG ALLEN’s colorful aerial vantage creates a lofty perspective from which to consider the shape and scope of each individual, and their composition as a whole. From afar, a mass of bodies, on their own like red blood cells or grains of pink salt, form a pair of lips. In line with the theme of the exhibit, is all about perspective.

Like graffiti, the artist SEEK ONE juxtaposes 20th-century American symbols—classic cars, blonde women, Converse shoes—with a cacophony of color. The clashing of America’s black-and-white past with a myriad palette is, as Andrea eloquently describes, “social commentary of urban life, capturing the hustle and the often-overlooked brightness of it all.”

Beyond the monochrome of shadow, the art on display at the On the Bright Side Exhibit bursts with light and colors. You won’t have to squint or scratch your head wondering what you are looking at. Kat’s description of the exhibit is poignant and direct, “There are no minimalists in this exhibit.” That is not to speak ill of black and white, they are named The White Room Gallery after all.