The White Room Gallery has the Winter Blues, but those that visit the Bridgehampton-based gallery’s latest exhibition, which opens on Saturday, January 18, certainly won’t leave feeling blue.
“When done right there is nothing more beautiful than the blues. Iceland. Greenland. Bahamas. Amagansett. Montauk. Waters. Symbols. Surfboards. Images and people who influenced the arts now part of the art. Photography. Painting. Mixed Media. All manifested in hues of blue,” Andrea McCafferty and Kat O’Neill, Co-Owners/Co-Directors, noted. “Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and the body. It slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect. In many cultures blue is believed to bring peace and keep bad spirits at bay.”
 |
|
O’Neill’s Water Reflection. (Courtesy Photo) |
Winter Blues will feature works from O’Neill, Seek One, Lynn Savarese, Keith Ramsdell, Martha McAleer, and Dinesh Boaz.
“No wonder blues have always been a go to for interior designers. So even though winter is going to be a day longer this year this exhibit gives you a reason not to be blue about it,” the duo shared. “That said. Expect to hear B.B., John Lee, Buddy, Etta, Billie and Big Mama at the opening.”
O’Neill is an award-winning photographer, mixed media artist and writer as well as Co-Director/Co-Owner at The White Room Gallery. Her work has been described as provocative, imaginative, unique, bold, crisp and unexpected. Street art is mixed with city images, rocks turn into characters, industrial pieces take on their own beauty in abstract reflections or evocative still lifes, vintage album covers create montages, words convey a story and, often, paint and layers add dimension as her pieces are born. O’Neill remarked that she is intrigued by a myriad of catalysts. Both masculine and feminine. Her images are burned into metal because of its vibrancy, simplicity and the fact that it can withstand the elements.
O’Neill has won many awards for her art including gold for best of the best for the past four years including 2019. In addition, O’Neill has won The Award of Excellence by Juror Karen Marks, Director of Manhattan’s Howard Greenberg Gallery, one of the world’s leading photography galleries as well as Juror Dr. Naomi Rosenblum, eminent photographic historian and Juror Jennifer McGregor, Director of Arts and Senior Curator at Wave Hill Cultural Center.
 |
|
Seek One’s Grace Kelly. (Courtesy Photo) |
Seek One is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who began writing graffiti at the age of fifteen. He was raised in the graffiti and the skateboard scene and spent years experimenting in different mediums, along with a business and fine art degree. He rediscovered his love for street art in 2015 when he began to transition to fine art. His work represents a combination of photography and graffiti expressed in a mixed media style deriving influence from pop culture and street styles. The significance behind each piece presents a unique form of authenticity that speaks to all ages and backgrounds. His day to day work focuses on power of popular culture while also focusing on the process of producing innovative fine art.
“As a contemporary artist, I aim to develop one of one pieces of fine art that bring iconic figures, vintage media and street style into one,” said Seek One. “My work stems from my background as a graffiti street artist and photographer while also depicting nostalgic influences from my childhood and world travels. Mixed with my obsession with popular culture and its influence on society; this drives me to channel that influence and incorporate it to my work. Blurring the lines between urban culture and fine art has established my unique style of art bringing iconic images and street style together. My goal is to develop timeless pieces of fine art that people of all ages can connect with.”
 |
|
Keith Ramsdell’s Montauk Point. (Courtesy Photo) |
Savarese resided and traveled throughout the world before making New York City her home in the early 1980s following her graduation from Harvard Law School. Before a successful career in photography, Savarese spent many years pursuing careers in corporate law and investment banking. She also took a lengthy sabbatical to raise her family and pursue volunteer work for various human rights organizations. Since then, her photography has appeared in numerous shows and publications worldwide and she’s won several international prizes and honors, including being selected as a Finalist in the 2016 Magnum Photography Awards competition. Savarese focuses on intimate observation in her photography. She reveals how the ordinary can be viewed as extraordinary, and how the extraordinary can be portrayed with intimacy.
She loves to capture water in her photographs, which is a big motivator for her travels from the Hamptons and Nantucket’s sea shores, the Adirondacks, Louisiana’s bayous and Texas’s lakes, and the Charles River, to the Maldives and the Caribbean, Iceland, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, France, Thailand, Vietnam, and Russia. Savarese appreciates all forms of water – from calm to turbulent. Her goal is to evoke how water uniquely soothes, excites, inspires, consoles, renews, delights, and awes.
 |
|
One of Martha McAleer’s pieces. (Courtesy Photo) |
Ramsdell uses long-exposure photography to create minimal seascape washes. He relies on the essential aspects of minimalism – line, shape and texture – to form greyscale images that are affecting in their simplicity. His work represents natural elements and manmade structures in congruence, reducing these parts of the landscape to their purest form. Each image conveys an almost surreal sense of stillness and balance that cannot be disturbed.
Ramsdell’s biggest inspiration has been his close proximity to the water as a surfer. “The ocean serves as my primary inspiration, and the predominant location of my work,” said Ramsdell. “Working in black and white allows me to detach myself from the chaotic reality of color, and enables a broader interpretation of the environment, offering up a space that can be filled by the viewer’s imagination. The technique of long-exposure photography elicits the subtle gradations of light and shadow that permeate my nature studies as well as my architectural subjects.”
 |
|
Savarese’s Pool Paints IV. (Courtesy Photo) |
McAleer has always wanted to be an artist from a very young age. She began sketching with a #2 pencil and lined paper in first grade. The rest is history! “I’d get up close and visually erase anything but the singular object that I was viewing. That was the start of my seeing the world in black and white,” said McAleer. “For me, it was a simpler way to remember details. To this day I see the world at large in black and white but when I paint it becomes vibrant with color.”
Today, McAleer works primarily on canvas with acrylic paint and plaster. She creates paintings immersed in texture.
Boaz started with a camera in his Soho recording studio where he worked on producing music artists. He realized he had an innate interest with the visualization of the music rather than purely the instrumentation. Boaz’s current collection of images results from his work all over the world, in over 25 hours of helicopters flights flying between 500 to 1000 feet above the ground throughout 2016 to 2019. His first flight began with his awakening to the world from above and how to showcase and share its natural beauty. Boaz’s idea has continued to evolve and today the artist’s mission is to unravel the new stories and concepts that are created on each flight he takes.
Winter Blues will be on view through Sunday, March 1. An Opening Reception will be held on Saturday, January 18 from 5 to 7 p.m.
White Room Gallery is located at 2415 Main Street in Bridgehampton. For more information, call or visit www.thewhiteroom.gallery.
