Island art galleries are readying for another busy season, after many saw robust sales in 2020 as locked-down households grew tired of the same old walls and a wave of pandemic home-buyers feathered new nests.
At Edgartown’s Christina Gallery, owner Christina Cook said she sold all of landscape painter Marjorie Mason’s new work last summer. Ms. Mason’s new collection of Island scenes will arrive in late June at the 44-year-old gallery, which is open year-round on Winter street and carries historic maps and charts, vintage prints and contemporary sailor’s valentines as well as landscape and nature paintings.
Neighboring Winter Street Gallery, which showcases both emerging and established contemporary artists, opens for its sophomore season with a reception Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. celebrating a group show titled Night Watch. Co-owners Ingrid Lundgren and George Newall have recently returned to the Vineyard from Mexico City, where they curated a sculpture exhibition for the Galería Hilario Galguera earlier this spring.
“It was very exciting to share what Winter Street Gallery is doing in a new context,” Ms. Lundgren said. The pair also discovered some artists in Mexico that they would like to feature in the gallery, she said.
Another Edgartown gallery that launched during the pandemic, Untameable on Dock street, also had a productive first season.
“I thought it was going to be a labor of love,” said owner Lucy Dahl, who opened the gallery in midsummer to showcase her photography. “It ended up being quite successful.”
Ms. Dahl said she plans to reopen Untameable at the end of June with new work including a collection titled Intimacy: Into-Me-You-See.
“It’s [about] the journey between light and dark within ourselves,” she said.
At Eisenhauer Gallery on North Water street, owner Elizabeth Eisenhauer beamed as she announced the return of the gallery’s live music series after last year’s pandemic hiatus. Beginning in June, on Thursdays from 6 to 8 p.m. the Vineyard Square plaza in front of Ms. Eisenhauer’s galley will again host bands including the Dukes of Circuit Avenue, Mike Benjamin and the Keepers, and Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish.
Inside the gallery, Ms. Eisenhauer has welcomed a diverse slate of new artists including Boston painters Christopher Peter and Wendy Artin, New York portraitist Cindy Press and edgy Florida Pop-artist Holly Manneck, who also shows at galleries in Boston and Paris.
Island painter Janice Frame also has new work at Eisenhauer, which carries sculptural jewelry as well as paintings, drawings, sculptures and mixed media.
While the music is back, Eisenhauer has lost its longtime gallery manager, Amy Cash, who is launching her own establishment in Vineyard Haven. Amy Cash Gallery opens at 30 Main street this Friday with fine art jewelry by Ms. Cash and other artisans, alongside paintings, ceramics and sculptural work.
The new gallery joins a Vineyard Haven Main street scene that also includes the lively collection at Louisa Gould Gallery, an absorbing mix of media from paintings to carved porcelain and wearable art, and the seasonal Island cooperative Night Heron Gallery, which offers jewelry, ceramics, high-end crafts such as M.C. Lamarre’s rope baskets and Belden Radcliffe’s up-cycled apparel, and appealing cut-paper creations by Taylor Stone.
The Workshop, on Beach Road, opens its 2021 season on June 4 with a reception from 4 to 7 p.m. for The Trace of Time, a show of abstract oil paintings by Kristin Texeira. An announcement for the exhibition notes that it includes an interactive element, asking viewers to ponder the nature and meaning of time.
The Oak Bluffs Art District resumes its monthly strolls along gallery-rich Dukes County avenue in July, according to Holly Alaimo of the cooperative Galaxy Gallery, which reopens on Friday. With more than 30 artists working in a variety of media, the Galaxy Gallery is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends through June, with daily hours from July through early September, Ms. Alaimo said. The Arts District strolls are scheduled for July 10, August 7 and Sept. 8.
Also on Dukes County avenue, Knowhere Art Gallery is opening Saturday with a group show called Collide & Scope, featuring work by seven BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) artists. The gallery is open through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment. Owner Valerie Francis has also scheduled a series of artist talks on Zoom, Saturdays in June beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Ms. Francis also has established a second art space, Center of Knowhere, at 73 Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs, where a collaboration between Island artists Wendy Weldon and Rob Hauck opens Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Among up-Island art spots, the Ruel Gallery in Menemsha opens for the season this weekend, showcasing paintings by Colin Ruel and jewelry by Nettie Kent, Friday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Field Gallery in West Tisbury, which opened its doors in early May, and its year-round siblings the Granary in West Tisbury and North Water Gallery in Edgartown are open daily and also offer virtual gallery tours on their websites: fieldgallery.com, granarygallery.com and northwatergallery.com.
Inside or outside, in-person or virtual, up-Island or down-Island, the Island art scene beckons.
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