East End Arts’ fourth annual ‘Detour’ exhibition opens in Riverhead
The grand opening reception for East End Arts’ fourth annual Detour exhibition kicked off Saturday, June 3.
The experience showcases paintings from 20 North and South fork artists at East End Arts’ primary space at 133 East Main St. and its gallery at 11 West Main St.
The exhibit draws its name from Riverhead’s unique location, just west of either fork. Whether a summer traveler is ultimately headed north or south, the downtown area is just a quick detour from their path.
“Riverhead, being the nexus of the two forks, is a great place to have accessible art either from the North Fork or the South Fork,” East End Arts creative director Wendy Weiss said.
The annual show, which opens each year during the Mosaic Street Painting Festival, launches the summer season for the nonprofit, which also offers arts and music classes for people of all ages.
The Detour IV exhibit was founded by artists Glen Hansen and Adam Straus, who, Ms. Weiss explains, sought an art show on the East End “on par with something you might see in Chelsea or Soho.”
“These are working professionals that are in museums, that are in galleries,” Mr. Hansen said of the artists represented in this year’s exhibition. “They are not Sunday painters, and the quality is super high.”
Mr. Hansen has been working on a series of paintings of architectural wonders of the world, one of which, “Midtown,” will hang in Detour IV.
“You’re looking down and you’re getting the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Madison Square Garden, the Flatiron Building, buildings that I really like in Manhattan,” Mr. Hansen said of his oil painting, which spans 4 feet by 4 feet.
For Ms. Weiss, the annual Detour show is a chance to draw more visitors to East End Arts through high-profile artwork. From a private collection, the gallery borrowed an original piece by Richard Prince, who she described as a “world-renowned” artist whose “cutting edge” work has been deemed controversial on occasion.
“The piece that we have is very fun, actually,” Ms. Weiss said. “It’s called ‘Jerry’s Girl,’ and it is a compilation of 57 of Jerry Seinfeld’s on-screen girlfriends in the ‘Seinfeld’ series … and put them together to create the face of a woman.”
Detour IV will run through Aug. 27. East End Arts’ galleries are open noon-5 p.m. Thursdays, 2-7 p.m. Fridays, noon-5 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sundays.
