Darius Yektai was born in Southampton NY, in 1973. He lives and works out of his home and studio in Sag Harbor. Surrounded by the arts in his youth, Yektai absorbed the rich creative culture of his home, shared with his Greek-American Mother, and his Father, Manoucher Yektai, an Iranian who emigrated to the US during the Second World War, who was a prominent Hamptons AbEx painter among the likes of Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning. Throughout Darius’s journey as an artist, he has explored unique and inventive methods of handling paint, reconciling subject and message, searching for a balance between representation and expressionism. While Yektai has naturally picked up some instincts from his father, he continues to push even further into a style that is now completely his own. A signature technique of his is the thick impasto application of oil paint, followed by layers of resin, which are then painted over, creating space and dimension within the plane of a canvas. As such, his paintings transcend the 2-dimensional and often lean sculptural, combining paint with found objects like broken ceramics, strips of canvas, and natural materials. He's creating sculptural paintings that like to be walked around and can't only be read from left to right; These paintings must be examined from surface to base, from section to section, and finally as a whole. While many of his paintings are grounded by observational elements like the still life or landscape, Yektai manipulates these spaces through the process of abstraction, leaving us with complex compositions, engaging and sensual surfaces, and bold color combinations that leave us asking, what will he do next?
Yektai’s recent body of work requires us to take a literal step back; These paintings are large, bold, the colors synthesizing an abstract song about nature and feeling. Up close, we can investigate his decisions in the artistic process, but from afar, we recognize the prodigious skill of an abstract composer. In this new work, Yektai also returns to an iconic subject that he’s reignited our passion for, the water lily landscape, with these rich, moody, powerful paintings that continue to draw us in.
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
2024 | Darius Yektai | The Grenning Gallery | Sag Harbor, NY
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
2024 | Strike Fast, Dance Lightly | The Church, Sag Harbor, NY
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
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.
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.
