The historic Tashmoo Spring building in Tisbury becomes an art gallery this weekend, showing new and recent work by 30 artists on the theme A Beach Scene.
Opening with a public reception Friday, July 3 from 3 to 7 p.m., the exhibition includes paintings and ceramics by both year-round and seasonal Island artists alongside those of their contemporaries from Boston, New York and elsewhere on the globe.
For the next two days, it will be open by appointment with one of the three New York gallerists who organized the show: Erin Goldberger of Half Gallery in Manhattan, Sara Maria Salamone of Mrs. Gallery in Queens and painter Tommy May of Blue Door Gallery in Brooklyn.
All three curators have longtime Island ties and ostensibly are on vacation this month, but said they couldn’t resist the opportunity to host an easygoing group show on a summery theme.
“The art world can be so serious,” said Mr. May, who turned out in flip-flops and a bulldozer hat to hang the show this week.
Ms. Goldberger said she and Mr. May discovered the Tashmoo Spring building, which is owned by the town and managed by a small committee, last year when they couldn’t find an affordable location for a short-term exhibition of Mr. May’s paintings.
“The town of Tisbury was super helpful,” she said.
Last summer’s show was a hit, Ms. Goldberger said, so this year they decided to expand on the concept with a group show and invited Ms. Salamone to take part as well, with each curator asking 10 artists for work that fits the beach-scene theme.
“I always like these kind of things, because it’s an excuse to get your artists that you work with to have a fun new experience and show somewhere [different],” Ms. Goldberger said.
A group show on Martha’s Vineyard also can be a resume-builder for younger artists, Ms. Salamone said.
Along with beachy landscapes and sea scenes, the show includes abstract paintings. Mr. May, an abstract painter himself, said they match the theme just as well as the representational works.
“My work is all about responding to nature, and... [other abstract artists] are very involved with their surroundings as well,” he said, citing Brooklyn painter Nathan Dilworth’s tropically hued Chorus, which Mr. May already was showing at his gallery.
“That’s a landscape,” Mr. May said. Other painters created new work for the show, he said.
Island artists represented in A Beach Scene include painters Colin Ruel, Beth Smith and Sarah Palmer, and ceramist Jennifer Langhammer, whose deadpan can of Superior Oysters and barnacled Lost Boat are anything but abstract.
Mr. Ruel’s Gay Head view, Cliffs and Water, hints at the fragility of the land beneath a moving sky of clouds and light, while seasonal Vineyarder Sarah Schlesinger’s moody oil of waves has no sky in sight.
Boston-born abstractionist Demetrius Wilson’s Views Beyond captures the energy of a passing storm, and Mr. May’s own Passing Cuttyhunk evokes a calm day at sea.
Among the other New York painters, Daniel Heidkamp painted a Menemsha scene and Mary Temple added deer to her beach painting.
Artists from further afield include Tessa Greene O’Brien of Portland, Me., Marlon Wobst of Berlin, who has both a painting and a ceramic sculpture in the show, and Brazilian painter Mika Takahashi.
There are also mixed-media works by Chris Bogia, whose three-dimensional Sunset sinks through a burlap sky, and pop artist Peter Dayton, a visual artist also known for his music.
While the artworks will be for sale, the three curators agreed they have two main goals for this weekend’s show: for their artists to get more exposure and for everyone involved to have a good time.
“You have so many serious moments throughout the year that are kind of required of you [in] the art world,” Ms. Goldberger said. “We want to have fun."
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