FEATURED ARTISTS

The Grenning Gallery is pleased to announce our Darius Yektai Solo Exhibition, opening Thursday July 23, at 26 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY, 11963. Please join us at our Opening Reception Thursday evening, from 6:30 – 8:00pm; the artist will be in attendance. The exhibition will hang through Sunday August 16th.

Now in its seventh consecutive year, the annual show has become a summer fixture at Grenning Gallery — a milestone that finds Yektai returning to beloved territory while pushing into new ground. Longtime collectors will be pleased to find his signature 3-dimensional waterlily paintings and abstract flower compositions that have become synonymous with his name at Grenning Gallery, alongside the debut of a colorful new figurative series and several abstract paintings. These new works expand Yektai’s oeuvre beyond the florals and waterscapes, for which he is best known. Where Kasos 8 lingers on texture and color up-close, Kasos 5 pulls back to a wider, almost surrealist view of the island. The figure stands partially submerged, back to the viewer, gazing toward the horizon. Heavy impasto in the rocky bluffs plays against the mirrored finish of the sea, where a deep blue sky drips down in pigment.

Yektai’s range of color, vivid or restrained, comes through in a trio of new, large scale falling flower paintings: Rising Rose, Falling Lily Tree, and Dark Charcoal Lilies — that share the same branching floral motif carried across three distinct palettes. Rising Rose burns in gold, orange, and red, with high-contrasting stems and clusters of red blossoms ascending above a ground that appears to radiate heat. Falling Lily Tree shifts into deep plum and magenta, its white blossoms and green vining stems threading through the composition like the last light of dusk on an overcast day. Dark Charcoal Lilies strips the palette down entirely, pairing ghostly fusain line work in the upper register with a dense, inky mass of black foliage below — shadow standing in for color. Seen together, the three paintings function almost as a study in mood: the same botanical language, refracted through fire, air, and light.

The show also introduces several new entries in Yektai's popular waterlily series, including Manganese Cerulean Pond. The painting's cool, silvery hues echo its namesake mineral, while a single weeping willow branch extending from the upper left corner — its foliage bright white and yellow — anchors an otherwise somber, contemplative landscape, offering a quiet visual respite from the noise of daily life. Across the broader waterlily series, Yektai continues to explore varied hues — from subtle neutrals to electric chartreuse — alongside an assortment of sizes, shapes, and an eclectic mixture of frames.

Like Yektai’s waterlily paintings, his closely observed local landscapes benefit from his intimate and concentrated attention. Edge of Long Pond exhibits Yektai’s impression of the Long Pond Greenbelt, just steps from his studio. Branches reach across the canvas atop that landscape, forcing the viewer to closely observe the scene’s native flora. Long Pond through the Trees is all about the titular subject, the trees. Up close, we see thickly painted branches standing upright, catching light and casting shadows. A green underpainting presents a watering hole just below the horizon, relaying a glimpse of the landscape in which these trees inhabit. And finally, in Duck Blind, our eye naturally gravitates to the eastern redbud which stretches across the canvas, yet the painting takes its name from what lies hidden beneath. A verdant pondscape encircling a duck blind, a small hut camouflaged by natural reeds and grasses, to allow hunters to take aim on their prey, hidden in plain sight. Yektai’s ability to look deeply at the local landscape and create gorgeous abstractions continues to amaze us.

In Corner of Table by Field, Yektai continues to blur the line between still life and landscape. One of the more traditional compositions in the exhibition centers a colorful tabletop holding two flower vases, situated within a field beneath a blooming tree. A post-and-rail fence stretches across the canvas, emphasizing the unadorned charm of this rural landscape. As always, his thick layering of paint and resin invites the eye to linger, tracing each emerging layer of the composition. Rendered in natural colors yet accentuated with lush jewel-toned brushstrokes, the pastoral scene recalls the sensuous French landscapes of Pierre Bonnard.

As does, View of Porter and Roses – a colorful mountain scene rendered in loose pointillistic brushstrokes. Sweeps of grey and blue pigments make up the sky above a contrasting forest green mountain peak, which encompasses ragged valleys and bluffs of soft pale greens and earthy oranges. At the mountain’s base, is a life-size vase of flowers; facing the viewer head-on with romance – dried roses preserved in resin mimic the pointillist brushwork throughout.

That romance continues in Moonrise over Chamonix; a large vertically oriented painting which amplifies and exaggerates the light of a full moon over the French Alps. Beams of light reach from the lustrous orb at the mountain’s peak, in every direction. A meadow is illuminated at the base of the mountain range, where a field of wildflowers shimmer in red, pink and yellow forms. A backlit figure stands before the glorious scene with a dog, taking in the moonlit beauty. This composition reminds us how tiny one can feel amongst the grandeur of our environment.

Yektai’s abstraction Earth Touching 1 is a raw canvas washed in a splattering of neutral pigments showcases spheres of both solid color and negative space. A red sphere floats above a green sphere, which sits upon a ground of blue and airy white. Yektai implements a pattern of pink and orange hash-like brushstrokes that outline the upper edge of the composition. Although other than shapes, there are no representational forms, the composition offers the viewer a chance to observe and anticipate what may be happening. The viewer may sense a similar experience as the figure did in Moonrise over Chamonix, where one’s own form debates the scale and tangibility of forms before us, and how they may exist beyond our perceptible comprehension.

The Grenning Gallery is pleased to announce our third annual Hunt Slonem Solo Exhibition, Opening Thursday June 25th at 26 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY, 11963. Please join us at our Opening Reception Thursday evening, from 6:30 – 8:00pm; the artist will be in attendance.  The exhibition will hang through Sunday July 19th.

Hunt Slonem returns to Grenning with varying configurations of his iconic bunnies. He, of course, elaborates on this subject in various colors, sizes and compositions. These simple flick-of-the-wrist rabbits have become synonymous with Hunt Slonem – some say it’s his signature motif. These bunnies often sit atop one another, squeezing together tightly as if in anticipation for a family photograph. Although repetition is clearly a vessel for Slonem’s creative output, each bunny embodies its own individual identity.

This year, Slonem delivers “Fluffle 3 with Butterflies”, a large golden canvas chock-full of bunny rabbits and white butterflies. This pairing of bunnies and butterflies creates a kind of spiritual duality – earthly luck, abundance, and fertility (the rabbit) alongside transcendence and transformation (the butterfly). The widespread use of repetition by Slonem is a form of creative meditation that unlocks subconscious sentiment, so the combination of these two symbols isn’t decorative so much as it is devotional.

The largest painting this year, however, does not feature Slonem’s signature motif – instead, a family of owls amongst the trees. Unlike Slonem's bunnies, which multiply in cheerful chorus, these owls preside. A parliament of mixed species — great horned, barred, and beyond — emerges from a silver ground that glows like pooled moonlight, the forest rendered in urgent strokes of black and blue. The composition is dense but not frantic; each owl holds its place with a stillness that feels ancient. In many traditions, the owl is a keeper of hidden knowledge, a creature at home in the space between worlds. Here, they seem utterly unbothered by our arrival.

In Monsoon Ascension II, Slonem captures transformation at its most literal — white butterflies rising through a curtain of falling rain. The canvas is built in layers: a silver ground cross-hatched with fine blue lines, then vertical streaks of deep navy dripping earthward, and finally the butterflies themselves, scattered at varying states of materialization. Some are fully rendered in white; others exist only as dark outlines, as if still deciding whether to arrive. The effect is of a world caught between states — between storm and stillness, between form and flight. Ascension, here, is not triumphant. It is quiet, inevitable, and ongoing.

A departure from Slonem’s usual menagerie, Blue Abraham Lincoln turns the same feverish brushwork toward portraiture. Rendered in cobalt and white against a brilliant blue ground, Lincoln emerges with startling presence — familiar yet newly alive, as if seen through the painter's own devotion. One of Slonem's most enduring portrait subjects, Lincoln — long regarded as an icon of moral integrity and principled leadership — feels especially resonant this year as America marks its 250th birthday. At an intimate 20 x 16 inches, the portrait carries the quality of a personal icon, something kept close.

Rounding out the exhibition, a selection of smaller works on panel — spanning bunnies, butterflies, owls, and monkeys across a vibrant range of colors and grounds — each one a concentrated expression of the same devotional energy that defines his larger canvases.

The Grenning Gallery is pleased to present Summer’s Here, the gallery’s first exhibition of the high season. Returning artists Steven Levin and Sarah Lamb debut new paintings, and the gallery introduces two established realist painters new to the roster: Steven Assael and David Saunders. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, May 30, from 6:00 to 7:30 pm, and remains on view through Sunday, June 21.

Summer’s Here is a group exhibition highlighting four established realist painters who reaffirm the ethos on which Grenning Gallery was founded: a space for classically trained artists inspired by nature and humanity. Steven Levin brings a surrealist sensibility to meticulously crafted compositions; Sarah Lamb delivers lush, decadent still life paintings. Exhibiting at Grenning for the first time is renowned figurative painter Steven Assael, whom Gallery Owner Laura Grenning has long admired. Also new to the roster is David Saunders, an acclaimed mixed-media artist whose deeply humanist subjects and distinctive process of incising canvases first caught the eye of Gallery Manager Megan Toy. Together, these four painters challenge the viewer with expert precision and richly varied renderings of the human experience.

Steven Levin (b. 1964, Minnesota)

Levin’s “The Gardener” pairs classical technique with playfully surrealist subject matter. An apron-clad gardener leans on his spade and surveys his work with solemn composure—a single tree emerging from the soil before him. His unfazed demeanor stands in quiet juxtaposition to his environment: the grassy plot beneath him hovers among the clouds. The work marks a distinct departure from Levin’s realist figure paintings and recalls the spirit of René Magritte’s Golconda (1953, The Menil Collection).

The exhibition also features the next installment in Levin’s celebrated hat series, “The White Bowler.” A white bowler hat hovers above a marble dais beneath a crescent moon and an empty nest holding only a single white feather. Apricot light along the horizon suggests either dusk or dawn. The transitional light and the empty nest together evoke themes of rebirth and new beginnings.

Rounding out Levin’s contribution is “Blue and White,” a still life firmly grounded in traditional realism. Several chinoiserie vases are paired with green apples and a cyan urn, with nothing to distract from Levin’s meticulous rendering of light, shadow, and texture. The soft folds of a linen backdrop set off the glassy sheen of antique pottery and the waxy surface of apple skin.

Sarah Lamb (b. 1971, Virginia)

Sarah Lamb’s “Le Petit Déjeuner” is a realist showstopper. Set in a warmly lit domestic interior, the painting presents fresh bread, butter, and jam with an inviting glow. A glass jug of milk commands the composition, the label’s pop of blue drawing the eye while showcasing Lamb’s mastery of depicting texture through refracted light. Together, these simple elements evoke the unhurried pleasures of country living.

“Ripening Peaches” is another endorsement for eating local; a farmstand-fresh paper bag stands tall and open, with the produce on the table; 5 round peaches and a few stray leaves from the tree which they were plucked from.

Steven Assael (b. 1957, New York)

For Gallery Owner Laura Grenning, presenting Steven Assael represents the fulfillment of a long-held ambition. Assael’s work has been legendary among painters and collectors in the realist art world for decades, and Summer’s Here marks his first exhibition at the Grenning Gallery. Widely regarded as one of the finest living realist painters in the United States, Assael’s career predates the contemporary atelier movement—he has been showing in galleries since 1979, and his work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Arkansas Art Center. That institutional recognition comes as no surprise: from the very beginning, Assael’s singular talent set him apart.

What distinguishes Assael is not technical mastery alone—though that mastery is formidable—but his unflinching observation of each individual he paints. The sense of a person, their inner life and presence, is palpable in his work to anyone who takes a moment to absorb the painting.

The exhibition includes several of Assael’s oil-on-copper paintings. Among them, “Candace” stands out for its subject and technique in equal measure. Assael’s classical handling brings rich color and depth to his depiction of a contemporary woman: her torso is rendered in meticulous detail to showcase her full-body tattoos, while her hair and right-hand dissolve into gestural brushstrokes—as if she is becoming one with the copper plate beneath.

Firefighters have been a recurring subject in Assael’s work since the 1990s. “Cleaner’s Fire” was directly inspired by an event Assael witnessed at a dry-cleaning facility in Queens during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this large-scale oil, shimmering bands of rainbow flame illuminate the firefighters’ reflective clothing and stretch upward into a smoke-filled sky. The solemn backs of the figures contrast the glistening fire beyond—a testament to Assael’s ability to find beauty in the midst of catastrophe.

David Saunders (b. 1954, New York)

David Saunders rounds out the exhibition with his signature layered approach to painting. Having begun his career in the arts as an aid to his father, Norman Saunders, the legendary pulp illustrator, and then meeting mentor Joseph Cornell while still in high school; Saunders early immersion in contemporary art granted him the time and opportunity to experiment in various artistic fields. First, in acquiring found objects, and then in film and set design, to assemblage and sculpture, and more. Saunders held his first exhibition out of Red Grooms’s studio in 1977, and by 1979, he was exhibiting a large installation at the New Museum. Over the years, Saunders was hired for many public sculpture commissions, from “Art on the Beach” 1982, at Battery Park, to “Seat” 1987 in the Bronx; or “Apple Fence” 1992 at Laguardia Airport, The Port Authority of NY and NJ; Saunders outdoor sculpture often invites the community to engage with or feel in-tune with the work. Saunders works have been collected by notable institutions including New York’s The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Hirschorn Museum (Washington DC) to name a few. It has been nearly 20 years since Saunders’s last gallery exhibition, and Grenning Gallery is honored to remind the world of his humble perspective, and his fresh take on realist painting.

Working across media, Saunders brings a collage-like sensibility to his canvases through bold color and an incising technique that carves into the surface itself. In “Spanish Guitar,” the guitar, bench, water gourd, and scattered onions are rendered in full color, while the guitarist himself appears as a carved golden form—as though his likeness was stripped from the canvas, leaving behind only an outline of his presence.

The largest painting from Saunders is “Fisherman’s Lures”; simultaneously a still-life and a figurative portrait of three men, yet these men exist in the second dimension. The three conspiring businessmen are drawn on an old boat dock in a local marina and then situated on a naturalist seascape of that marina. This compositional choice undermines the so-called “reality” of the landscape by treating its elements as malleable to the artist’s theatrical “stage direction”.

In “Gin,” a realist rendering of a shot glass is surrounded by incised figures of men and women in various states of intoxication. Rather than celebrating excess, the scene is suffused with a brooding weight—figures beaten down by their own indulgence, with falling babies amplifying the atmosphere of ruin. Saunders brings both technical invention and moral seriousness to his work, making him a compelling addition to the Grenning roster.

Summer’s Here is on view May 30 through June 21 at The Grenning Gallery, 26 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY 11963. The Opening Reception takes place Saturday, May 30, from 6:00 to 7:30 pm.