EAST HAMPTON, NY.- Guild Hall opened the two spring exhibitions Enoc Perez: Paradise and Karin Waisman: The Horizon is Not a Straight Line, on view concurrently from April 24 through May 31, Friday to Sunday, 12-5pm. Both exhibitions are curated by Museum Director/Chief Curator Christina Mossaides Strassfield.
“I am truly delighted and honored to have been able to work with such talented artists who demonstrate the enduring creative community of the East End,” said Christina Mossaides Strassfield. “Each has their own voice, vision, and passion that is translated by the unique techniques of their chosen media.”
Enoc Perez is a contemporary Puerto Rican-born multimedia artist best known for his paintings and oil stick drawings. Perez’s Guild Hall exhibition, Paradise is on view in the Moran and Spiga Galleries and explores the theme of natural disasters. Through large-scale paintings, Perez refers to the devastation that Puerto Rico experienced during the 2017 Hurricane Maria. Instead of focusing on the physical destruction, the artist paints bent, but not broken, palm trees to represent the hope that Puerto Rico will move forward and recover. Paradise includes paintings, sculpture, and drawings that have been created specifically for this exhibition, as well as other works that have yet to be exhibited elsewhere.
A short-form video on Enoc Perez: Ocean Park created by Shifting Vision, a foundation that examines how current social, political, and ecological issues influence our perception of the arts, is being shown continuously in the Spiga Gallery. Ocean Park shows the degradation caused by Hurricane Maria in the artist's native Puerto Rico and the artist’s need to document this event.
Perez states, “Having a show at Guild Hall is for me an opportunity to go on record as one of the artists that works in and loves East Hampton. When you look at the history of artists in the area you realize that so many great artists had a relationship with East Hampton and Guild Hall through the generations. It makes me feel like my work is part of that history and that is a wonderful feeling.”
Enoc Perez will join Christina Mossaides Strassfield for a live-streamed Gallery Talk on Saturday, May 22 at 3pm. A bilingual gallery tour with Enoc Perez is also available online.
Karin Waisman is an Argentinian-born multidisciplinary artist whose practice investigates the rhythmic cadence and pulsating patterns of nature. Her work includes large-scale public installations, wall reliefs, and drawings that explore our perception of natural world— its fluid and contradictory processes, boundless growth, and imminent threat of disorder. In this new exhibition, The Horizon Is Not a Straight Line, presented in the Woodhouse Gallery, Waisman exhibits a site specific, 250-inch-long cast resin and ceramic wall relief that investigates the notion of the border, conceiving it not as a straight line but a complex contact point between two elements that push and pull while continuing to support one another.
Also included are two series of Waisman’s pencil drawings on Mylar. The first, Fragments of a Mountain (2018–2021), studies the passage of geological time, absolute and determined by emptiness. Hundreds of years of erosion expose cavities in rock that hold humidity and debris. The second series, titled The Ocean Drawings (2012-2014), immerses the viewer into varying depths, currents, and temperatures, evoking oceanic currents that move us deeper then closer to the surface. The final and earliest work, Siren’s Beach (1996), unfolds across the floor in a cast-aluminum sculpture depicting a segment of desiccated land fragmented into a maze of Pythagorean spirals. This is the most in-depth presentation of Waisman’s internationally exhibited collection of work to date.
Karin Waisman comments, “Working on the East End of Long Island gives me a sense of belonging, rooted in a long tradition of artists who moved here to be close to nature. Guild Hall is at the center of that community and I’m very honored to contribute with my exhibition to that legacy.”
Enoc Perez received a BFA from the Pratt Institute and an MFA from Hunter College, both in New York. He began painting depictions of landmark buildings in the city, notably of the Headquarters of the United Nations, Lever House, and the Seagram Building. Perez's works are in the collections of the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D.C., the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, among others.
Karin Waisman was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and lives and works in New York. She has completed commissions for public places and institutions such as Espacio Escultórico del Desierto, San Luis Potosí, México; Museo del Barrio, New York; Plattsburgh Sculpture Park, SUNY Plattsburgh, New York; ART/OMI Sculpture Park, Ghent, New York; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in the US (Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY; Museo del Barrio, NY; SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY; Point of Contact, Syracuse, NY; Wallace Gallery, SUNY Old Westbury, NY; Neuhoff Gallery, NY; Haim Chanin Fine Arts, NY; Plattsburgh State Art Museum, Plattsburgh, NY; Hartell Gallery, Cornell University, NY); Germany (Überseemusum, Bremen; Unesco Institut für Pädagogik, Hamburg; Bürgerhalle im Rathaus, Wolfsburg); Mexico City (Museo del Chopo; Yvonamore Palix Gallery); and Argentina (Fundación Banco Patricios, Buenos Aires).
