Sara Nightingale Gallery in Sag Harbor will be abuzz with excitement on Saturday, January 11 when three exceptional exhibitions premiere.
“All three artists have ties to the local community. Christa Maiwald lives/ works in East Hampton, Stephanie Brody-Lederman has a studio in East Hampton, but goes back and forth between New York and Paris. Carl Scorza has a house out here as well and has been coming here for years, though he is based in NYC,” Sara Nightingale of Sara Nightingale Gallery explained.
Christa Maiwald’s Famous Cakes, Carl Scorza’s Cocktail Hour, and Stephanie Brody-Lederman’s The Urge to Tell the Truth will be on view through Wednesday, February 12.
While Maiwald has explored several mediums, including film, video, painting, sculpture and installation, throughout her 40-year career, her more recent pieces have revolved around embroidery and photography. Famous Cakes will encompass “mini-installations” that couple embroideries or photographs with items. The pieces were inspired by notable artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, Alberto Giacometti, Wayne Thiebaud, Michelangelo, and more.
“The mini-installations have evolved from my continuing interest in cakes and pastries. I combine replicas of baked goods made from soap with framed embroideries or photographs, many of which represent artists or artworks and cakes inspired by them,” Maiwald relayed.
Maiwald, who earned a B.F.A. in painting and sculpture from the Tyler School of Art and an M.F.A. in sculpture from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally. Her works have been showcased at Guild Hall in East Hampton, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Arts & Design in Manhattan, the Lulea Sommar Biennal in Lulea, Sweden, Galerie Houg in Lyon, France, the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, the Islip Art Museum in East Islip, the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University, Newark. She was awarded three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, CAPS, and Change, Inc. She has also taken part in residencies at ZBS Foundation and the Synapse Video Center at Syracuse University.
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Carl Scorza’s Park Place, oil on canvas, 32×40. (Courtesy Photo) |
Scorza’s Cocktail Hour will highlight works from his recent series of paintings that were inspired by restaurant and bar culture.
“Bars and restaurants are meeting places where people come together to relax but also to be on display themselves,” Scorza said. “I’m interested in painterly arrangements of bottles, their labels, and the translucent nature of light on glass, both natural and artificial, enabling us to see something through something else.”
Scorza, who studied at the New York Studio School, The Art Students League, and with Wayne Thiebaud at the National Academy of Art, began his career as a plein air landscape painter, focusing on rural Long Island. Eventually, he shifted to urban landscapes during a residency at the World Trade Center in 1997. Scorza has been an artist in residence on Governors Island and has exhibited at several New York Metropolitan area galleries.
“I thought this would make a great holiday show – cakes and cocktails and lots of red – but I didn’t have room in my schedule until January. Initially, I was going to show all three artists in a group show, but then decided to put Carl Scorza’s work in the project room and hang it salon style,” Nightingale said. “He is new to the gallery and approached me with this body of work, which I thought was a bit controversial – especially for people who have quit drinking or are now doing Health and Wellness programs for their New Year’s resolutions. He works in a more traditional painting style, which is not characteristic of the work I normally show, but one of his teachers was Wayne Theibaud, an artist I love, and there are echoes of Theibaud in his still lifes.”
Last, but certainly not least, there is Brody-Lederman’s The Urge to Tell the Truth.
“My work does not present a straight line to this quote. Rather it meanders over hills of verdant beauty and dales of trees and flora to create panoramas of bucolic incident,” Brody-Lederman explained. “But this is only the surface of my visual offerings. The words, often seemingly disparate, tell “the truth,” by way of being poetic, tenuous and from the heart.”
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Stephanie Brody-Lederman’s Garden Party, oil on canvas, 48″ x 60″. (Courtesy Photo) |
By utilizing familiar imagery, such as birds, trees, boats, or dogs in her text based paintings, Brody-Lederman encourages viewers to form a personal connection with the works by pondering their own individual experiences. Her work pays homage to the filmmaker Truffaut, “who found beauty in the complex simplicity of everyday life.”
“Christa Maiwald and Stephanie Brody-Lederman are both long time members of the gallery stable. They both have extensive resumes with many museum shows under their belts,” Nightingale shared. “I adore them both, as friends as well as colleagues. Both bring so much joy and originality in their work. Since Stephanie is a painter and Christa works in embroidery and photography, I felt I should present these as separate exhibitions, even though their works may be hung interspersed for the installation.”
Brody-Lederman’s work has been exhibited locally at Guild Hall in East Hampton, The Watermill Center and Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, as well as nationally at the MoMA and the Cooper Hewitt Museum in Manhattan, National Museum of Woman in the Arts in Washington, DC, and even internationally at Musee Bourdelle and Musee Forney in Paris. She has been recognized with grants and awards from New York Foundation for the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Center, Artist’s Space, Percent for Art, SOS Grant, Hassam ad Speicher Award, The National Academy of Art Purchase Award, NYFA/ NEA LINE Grant, Ariana Foundation for the Arts Grant, E.D. Founding Grant, and Percent for Art Grant.
An opening reception for the trio of exhibitions will take place on Saturday, January 11 from 5 to 7 p.m.
“I think the combined exhibitions will provide a lot of variety, and hopefully there will be something for everyone to enjoy. There might even be some sweet treats to munch on, since Christa Maiwald is a pastry chef and often brings goodies to her openings,” Nightingale added. “We aim to continue the holiday spirit into January. Hopefully it won’t snow at the opening!”
Sara Nightingale Gallery is located at 26 Main Street in Sag Harbor. For more information, call 631-793-2256 or visit www.saranightingale.com.
