Darius Yektai was born in Southampton NY, in 1973. He lives and works out of his home and studio in Sag Harbor. He grew up in a cultural home of art and artists, with his Greek-American Mother, and his Father, Manoucher Yektai, an Iranian who emigrated to the US after the Second World War, was a prominent Hamptons AbEx painter. Darius has picked up some traits from his father but pushes even further into what is now completely his-own.
Darius' most recent body of work is bright, colorful, with oil and acrylic paints laid on thick. He's creating sculptural paintings that can't be read from left to right, they need to be examined from surface to base, from section to section, and then overall as an encompassing whole.
EDUCATION
1998 - 1999 Studio Art, San Diego State University.
1994 - 1996 BA Art History, American University in Paris
1991 - 1994 Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA.
AWARDS
Guild Hall Museum’s annual members show
2010 Best Representational Work - Benjamin Genocchio
2008 Best Sculpture - Linda Jablonsky
2002 Best in Show - Amei Wallach
2023 | Darius Yektai: Soliloquy | The Grenning Gallery | Sag Harbor, NY
2022 | Darius Yektai Latest Works | The Grenning Gallery | Sag Harbor, NY
2022 | Waterlilies | Soloeh Abghari Gallery | Marbella, Spain
2021 | Waterlilies | The Grenning Gallery | Sag Harbor, NY
2020 | RESINance | The Art Center at Duck Creek | Springs, NY
2017 | Darius Yektai | KEYES ART PROJECTS | Sag Harbor, NY
2015 | Touch Thoughts | Tripoli Gallery | Southampton, NY
2014 | Two Weeks in Umbria | The Grenning Gallery | Sag Harbor, NY
2013 | On Country Ground | Tripoli Gallery | Southampton, NY
2009 | All I Know about Love at Thirty - Six Part 2 | LTMH Gallery, NY
2009 | All I Know about Love at Thirty-Six - Part 1 Salomon Contemporary, NY
2006 | Salomon Contemporary | East Hampton, NY
2003 Darius Yektai: Survey 2000-2003 | Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 | Breeze and Brine | The Grenning Gallery | Sag Harbor, NY
2022 | Contemporary Group Exhibition | Rarity Gallery | Mykonos, Greece
2022 | Locale Melange | The Grenning Gallery | Sag Harbor, NY
2020 | Drive-By-Art, New York (organized by Warren Neidich)
2019 | Thick And Wet | The Grenning Gallery | Sag Harbor, NY
2017 | Yektai | Guild Hall Museum | East Hampton, NY
2015 | Selfies and Portraits of the East End | Guild Hall Museum | East Hampton, NY
2012 Thanksgiving Collective 2012 | Tripoli Gallery, Southampton, NY
2012, 2010 | Watercolors, Phillips de Pury & Co. | New York, NY
2010 | Thanksgiving Collective | Tripoli Gallery, Southampton, NY
2010 | Tehran-NewYork | LTMH Gallery | New York, NY
2009 | Recent Acquisitions | Guild Hall Museum | East Hampton, NY
2009 | Before We Let Go... | Tripoli Gallery | Southampton, NY
2009 | In Stitches | LTMH Gallery, New York, NY (curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody)
2009 | Iran Inside Out | The Chelsea Art Museum | New York, NY (curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath)
2009 | Selseleh Zelzeleh: movers and shakers in contemporary Iranian art | LTMH Gallery, New York, NY (curated by Leila Heller and Dr. Layla S. Diba)
2008 | Conference of the Birds | Berardi and Sagharchi Projects with LTMH gallery | London, England
2008 | The Annual Hamptons Show | The Fireplace Project (curated by Klaus Kertess)
2007 | Sex and Sensuality | Salomon Contemporary | East Hampton, NY
2006 | M*A*S*H | Art Basel, Miami (curated by David Hunt)
2005 | Hampton’s Artists: Then and Now | Remy Toledo Gallery | New York, NY
2004 | Large Paintings, Hampton Road Gallery, Southampton, NY
2004 | Fresh Paint | Hampton Road Gallery | Southampton, NY
2002 | Spring Exhibition 2002 | Clark Fine Art | Southampton
2001 | Re-emerging Artists | Elaine Benson Gallery | Bridgehampton, NY
1997 | All-California Juried Exhibition | San Diego Museum of Art
A Drive-By Art Show Turns Lawns and Garages Into Galleries
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Exploring Layers to the Core of Darius Yektai
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Darius Yektai Waterlily Series is on view at Grenning Gallery beginning June 5, 2021 and through June 20th, 2021. This catalogue includes essays from Laura Grenning, Lloyd Wise, and Anthony Haden Guest, and high resolution images shot by local photographer, Gary Mamay.
Unbounded by rules yet informed by art history AND his family's tradition of Abstract Expressionism, Darius Yektai's latest work is at once an homage to tradition while also being a journey of experimentation. The Grenning Gallery is pleased to welcome the Latest Works of Darius Yektai (b.1973, Southampton, NY) as he returns for his third annual Solo Show. Yektai's urge to paint is innate; an affinity for the medium surges through his veins, as he is the son of the longest-lived Abstract Expressionist from the East Ends mid-century modern art movement. He is a direct descendant of the Action Painting movement, with a shared obsession with the materiality of paint that Pollock and DeKooning embodied out here in the Hamptons.
