By GREGORY ZELLER //
A Hamptons arts gallery with a Madison Avenue pedigree and a legacy of social awareness will meld the science of wellness and the beauty of art – first step on a slow journey along powerful healing pathways.
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is preparing its Bridgehampton studio for Lux Interna: An Invitation, a showcase of six contemporary artists who articulate new and ancient healing methods through various media, from painting to live performance.
The artists, all women and all living or working on the East End, were invited to An Invitation by eminent Sag Harbor art advisor Heidi Lee-Komaromi, who curated Lux Interna specifically to counter lingering mental and emotional aftereffects of the COVID pandemic.
And Lee-Komaromi, founder of New York City’s HLK Art Group, conscientiously curated the showcase to be viewed slowly – absorbed, processed, discussed – starting with a Feb. 11 “slow opening.”
“When presented in a certain way, art can lead to a healing experience through meditation and transcendence,” Lee-Komaromi noted. “Lux Interna is an invitation to experience art in a new way – slowly.”
Room with a view: Mary Boochever’s “Chromolume Room.”
Ultimately, the expressive exhibition aims to achieve what Kathryn Markel Fine Arts calls “ataraxy” – a state of sublime serenity – through what namesake Markel dubs “communal healing.”
“So many of us are in need of finding an inner peace these days,” the art-industry veteran, who opened her first New York City gallery in 1976, said in a statement. “The artists presented in Lux Interna emphasize a slow meditative artistic practice.
“We’re thrilled to be able to bring their talents to the community.”
Selected for the exhibition were minimalist paintings by Mary Boochever and watercolors by painter Stephanie Joyce. Boochever is also displaying her poetry in a “reading nook,” where visitors can “pause and reflect,” the gallery said in a statement.
Resin paintings by Sylvia Hommert, a meditation-based painting by Beata Pankiewicz and a selection of clay ceramics – used by ceramist Anna Cléjan in “ceremonial blessings,” according to the studio – will also be on display, as will artist Pipi Deer’s birth-of-the-cosmos painting “Sri Yantra” and Deer’s self-portrait.
Heidi Lee-Komaromi: Slow hand.
The exhibition also includes Boochever’s “Chromolume Room,” a recreation of a 19th Century invention by American physician Edwin Babbitt, an early pioneer of chromotherapy (the science of color and light therapy).
Other interactive attractions include hands-on healing sessions with Deer (accompanied by Tibetan music) and a blessing of the gallery’s garden, while that Feb. 11 “slow opening” – kicking off an exhibit slated to run through March 18 – is designed specifically for guests to linger and engage in more intimate art conversations.
Lee-Komaromi – who last June curated Reclamation, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts’ powerful indoor/outdoor exhibition focused on Russia’s Ukrainian invasion – said that slow-burn intimacy is key to the innovative “Lux Interna” exhibit, and to art’s mystical healing qualities.
“‘Slow art’ should be seen as an accessible experience that is more participatory than passive,” the curator added. “It is more a style of looking with more heightened attention, with time unfolding.”
