The Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor has a new exhibition featuring work by Springs artist Nick Weber. His paintings, on display alongside work by Marc Delassio, will be featured at the gallery through May 5.
An Artistic Connection Years in the Making
“I’ve known Laura Grenning for a long time,” says Weber. “She’s always shown these academic paintings from Florence and these ateliers where they paint realism in an academic way.” His own art can be characterized as a kind of realism, his body of work anchored by the figure paintings. There is, however, an element of something much more abstract in this particular exhibition, which frequent visitors to the Grenning Gallery might not expect.
“I became aware of Weber’s paintings many years ago,” says Grenning. “He registered in my mind as one of the finest painters working on the East End at the time. I was intrigued, but alas, he had good representation at the time, so I pushed my curiosity about his work aside.”
“She’s always seen that I’m representational realism and liked my work, but it’s never been a perfect fit,” Weber went on to say, “And then she started to expand what she shows a lot of over the last five years.”
It took time for the pair to make a real artistic connection, and it began with Weber visiting the Grenning Gallery. “I was very pleased when I got word that he had stopped by the gallery last summer with his new baby,” Grenning says, “And mentioned that he might be open to talking about working together.”
“She came and did a studio visit in the fall,” says Weber of their ensuing connection, “And she said, ‘Hey, I like what you’re doing’,” Weber explains that during that visit, Grenning saw some of his more abstract work. This is a kind of art that he’d been doing for around a decade, but never showed, except for one piece that he once placed in a group exhibition.
“A conversation and several studio visits later,” Grenning says, “I am very pleased to be opening his first show with Grenning Gallery!”
A Unique Abstraction
Weber sees his new work as something that includes both elements of realism and abstraction. “I sort of invented a technique years ago,” he says, “that I’ve been using where I paint on a piece of plastic and press it to the canvas, and then I have another pressing left in it.” After pressing and pressing again, Weber achieves a “Ghostlike” effect that is further refined with sanding between applications. “I’m building them up and then I’m sanding it down. It’s like a cyclical process almost of creation and destruction.”
“The overall effect is an intriguing blend of classical and contemporary,” observes Grenning, “Serious figurative art and whimsical, colorful abstraction.”
Weber finds a great deal of value in the painstaking process, feeling that his paintings are much more than their finished product, and hoping that the viewer finds value in that as well. He says, “It’s something worthwhile to do because there’s so little intimacy and connection left on our planet—that this, at least, is a process that’s slow and caring and affectionate, has some warmth to it.”
