The White Room recently debuted “an eclectic mix of inspirations and executions.” Premium Blend, featuring Scott Hewett and mother/daughter duo June Kaplan, and Penny Kaplan, premiered on Friday, March 16 and will remain on view until Sunday, April 8.
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Scott Hewett’s ketchupdrip. |
“It never ceases to fascinate how one medium can take on so many forms but that is what makes the mind of the artist so relentlessly intriguing,” Kat O’Neill, The White Room Co-Owner/Co-Director. ” Two of the three featured artists being mother and daughter adds to the intrigue.”
Hewett’s art has been lauded as “giving an ordinary object aspects of the extraordinary” with a style that “transcends simple photorealism by his use of almost hyper-real hues and strong contrast allowing his paintings to pop with unusual sensibility.” Originally from Bradford, Massachusetts, he moved to Sag Harbor in 1998. The award-winning artist, who’s had a lifelong passion of the arts, has been fêted with the Boston Globe Gold Key and the Tom O’Hara Award for Illustration.
“I have an incredible desire to create daily. Painting is the one constant in my life,” Hewett said. “I wish to reveal the beauty and brilliance of color within. I try to convey to the observer what I see through my eyes with the acrylic medium. I collaborate dark and light shades and play with complimentary colors to transport the ordinary into art and have it jump off the canvas.”
June Kaplan, an Impressionistic painter, studied at The Institute of Chicago. Picasso and Chagall influence her pieces, which are mixed media-acrylic, pastel, charcoal on canvas.
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Penny Kaplan’s Third Avenue. |
“For this exhibit I painted horses. The work emerges as freedom, not knowing any outcome,” Kaplan explained. “In going beyond my preconceived notions I have created this cohesive body of work. It is harrowing at times.”
While sometimes working on a series doesn’t go exactly as she plans, it encourages Kaplan to grow as an artist. “I have lost many good pieces in the process-yet with each journey I learn to allow myself to leave the studio, let the image dry to wait for another time or start a new canvas,” she added.
Penny Kaplan, a painter and sculptor, will unveil new watercolors. “For this exhibit my work is abstract images inspired by NYC locales,” she stated. “My evolution is stimulated by a process that draws upon the symbols of floral design as well as views from outside the apartment windows as seen as a fantasy abbreviated in abstract shape and form. This collection of unseen watercolors represents my fears for a world spinning out of control and the gracious love in the making of art.”
“The exhibit as a whole brings together pop, figurative, conceptual and abstract,” O’Neill added. “Thus titled, Premium Blend.”
An opening reception will take place on Saturday, March 24 from 5 to 7 p.m.
The White Room is located at 2415 Main Street in Bridgehampton. For more information, call 631-237-1481 or visit www.thewhiteroom.gallery.
