FEATURED ARTISTS

The Grenning Gallery is pleased to present Summer’s Here, the gallery’s first exhibition of the high season. Returning artists Steven Levin and Sarah Lamb debut new paintings, and the gallery introduces two established realist painters new to the roster: Steven Assael and David Saunders. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, May 30, from 6:00 to 7:30 pm, and remains on view through Sunday, June 21.

Summer’s Here is a group exhibition highlighting four established realist painters who reaffirm the ethos on which Grenning Gallery was founded: a space for classically trained artists inspired by nature and humanity. Steven Levin brings a surrealist sensibility to meticulously crafted compositions; Sarah Lamb delivers lush, decadent still life paintings. Exhibiting at Grenning for the first time is renowned figurative painter Steven Assael, whom Gallery Owner Laura Grenning has long admired. Also new to the roster is David Saunders, an acclaimed mixed-media artist whose deeply humanist subjects and distinctive process of incising canvases first caught the eye of Gallery Manager Megan Toy. Together, these four painters challenge the viewer with expert precision and richly varied renderings of the human experience.

Steven Levin (b. 1964, Minnesota)

Levin’s “The Gardener” pairs classical technique with playfully surrealist subject matter. An apron-clad gardener leans on his spade and surveys his work with solemn composure—a single tree emerging from the soil before him. His unfazed demeanor stands in quiet juxtaposition to his environment: the grassy plot beneath him hovers among the clouds. The work marks a distinct departure from Levin’s realist figure paintings and recalls the spirit of René Magritte’s Golconda (1953, The Menil Collection).

The exhibition also features the next installment in Levin’s celebrated hat series, “The White Bowler.” A white bowler hat hovers above a marble dais beneath a crescent moon and an empty nest holding only a single white feather. Apricot light along the horizon suggests either dusk or dawn. The transitional light and the empty nest together evoke themes of rebirth and new beginnings.

Rounding out Levin’s contribution is “Blue and White,” a still life firmly grounded in traditional realism. Several chinoiserie vases are paired with green apples and a cyan urn, with nothing to distract from Levin’s meticulous rendering of light, shadow, and texture. The soft folds of a linen backdrop set off the glassy sheen of antique pottery and the waxy surface of apple skin.

Sarah Lamb (b. 1971, Virginia)

Sarah Lamb’s “Le Petit Déjeuner” is a realist showstopper. Set in a warmly lit domestic interior, the painting presents fresh bread, butter, and jam with an inviting glow. A glass jug of milk commands the composition, the label’s pop of blue drawing the eye while showcasing Lamb’s mastery of depicting texture through refracted light. Together, these simple elements evoke the unhurried pleasures of country living.

“Ripening Peaches” is another endorsement for eating local; a farmstand-fresh paper bag stands tall and open, with the produce on the table; 5 round peaches and a few stray leaves from the tree which they were plucked from.

Steven Assael (b. 1957, New York)

For Gallery Owner Laura Grenning, presenting Steven Assael represents the fulfillment of a long-held ambition. Assael’s work has been legendary among painters and collectors in the realist art world for decades, and Summer’s Here marks his first exhibition at the Grenning Gallery. Widely regarded as one of the finest living realist painters in the United States, Assael’s career predates the contemporary atelier movement—he has been showing in galleries since 1979, and his work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Arkansas Art Center. That institutional recognition comes as no surprise: from the very beginning, Assael’s singular talent set him apart.

What distinguishes Assael is not technical mastery alone—though that mastery is formidable—but his unflinching observation of each individual he paints. The sense of a person, their inner life and presence, is palpable in his work to anyone who takes a moment to absorb the painting.

The exhibition includes several of Assael’s oil-on-copper paintings. Among them, “Candace” stands out for its subject and technique in equal measure. Assael’s classical handling brings rich color and depth to his depiction of a contemporary woman: her torso is rendered in meticulous detail to showcase her full-body tattoos, while her hair and right-hand dissolve into gestural brushstrokes—as if she is becoming one with the copper plate beneath.

Firefighters have been a recurring subject in Assael’s work since the 1990s. “Cleaner’s Fire” was directly inspired by an event Assael witnessed at a dry-cleaning facility in Queens during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this large-scale oil, shimmering bands of rainbow flame illuminate the firefighters’ reflective clothing and stretch upward into a smoke-filled sky. The solemn backs of the figures contrast the glistening fire beyond—a testament to Assael’s ability to find beauty in the midst of catastrophe.

David Saunders (b. 1954, New York)

David Saunders rounds out the exhibition with his signature layered approach to painting. Having begun his career in the arts as an aid to his father, Norman Saunders, the legendary pulp illustrator, and then meeting mentor Joseph Cornell while still in high school; Saunders early immersion in contemporary art granted him the time and opportunity to experiment in various artistic fields. First, in acquiring found objects, and then in film and set design, to assemblage and sculpture, and more. Saunders held his first exhibition out of Red Grooms’s studio in 1977, and by 1979, he was exhibiting a large installation at the New Museum. Over the years, Saunders was hired for many public sculpture commissions, from “Art on the Beach” 1982, at Battery Park, to “Seat” 1987 in the Bronx; or “Apple Fence” 1992 at Laguardia Airport, The Port Authority of NY and NJ; Saunders outdoor sculpture often invites the community to engage with or feel in-tune with the work. Saunders works have been collected by notable institutions including New York’s The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Hirschorn Museum (Washington DC) to name a few. It has been nearly 20 years since Saunders’s last gallery exhibition, and Grenning Gallery is honored to remind the world of his humble perspective, and his fresh take on realist painting.

Working across media, Saunders brings a collage-like sensibility to his canvases through bold color and an incising technique that carves into the surface itself. In “Spanish Guitar,” the guitar, bench, water gourd, and scattered onions are rendered in full color, while the guitarist himself appears as a carved golden form—as though his likeness was stripped from the canvas, leaving behind only an outline of his presence.

The largest painting from Saunders is “Fisherman’s Lures”; simultaneously a still-life and a figurative portrait of three men, yet these men exist in the second dimension. The three conspiring businessmen are drawn on an old boat dock in a local marina and then situated on a naturalist seascape of that marina. This compositional choice undermines the so-called “reality” of the landscape by treating its elements as malleable to the artist’s theatrical “stage direction”.

In “Gin,” a realist rendering of a shot glass is surrounded by incised figures of men and women in various states of intoxication. Rather than celebrating excess, the scene is suffused with a brooding weight—figures beaten down by their own indulgence, with falling babies amplifying the atmosphere of ruin. Saunders brings both technical invention and moral seriousness to his work, making him a compelling addition to the Grenning roster.

Summer’s Here is on view May 30 through June 21 at The Grenning Gallery, 26 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY 11963. The Opening Reception takes place Saturday, May 30, from 6:00 to 7:30 pm.

The Grenning Gallery is pleased to announce our first Solo Exhibition for Australian artist, Emily Persson. Please help us celebrate Persson, who will be traveling over 10,000 miles to attend our Opening Reception Saturday May 2, 5:30-7:00pm at 26 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY, 11963. The exhibition will hang through Memorial Day, Monday, May 25th.

Seven years ago, Gallery Manager Megan Toy discovered Persson's work on Instagram and immediately reached out. Toy was curating an exhibition titled "Thick & Wet," and Persson's signature palette-knife impasto applied to traditional subjects was exactly what she was looking for. Persson submitted seven small-scale paintings — all of which sold. Since then, she has appeared in several group shows, a two-person show in 2024, and a three-person show in 2025. Persson visited Sag Harbor for the first time in 2024, returning home to paint a collection of local scenes that proved enormously popular. Coming from Australia's arid climate, she brings a fresh eye to the lush East End landscape — the privet hedges, hydrangeas, rose bushes, and coastal shrubs are all entirely new to her.

“I Wonder So I Wander” presents a verdant scene of Sag Harbor. A front yard on Main Street is bordered by freshly cut privet and showered in shade from mature trees. Each leaf is defined with Persson’s palette knife, appearing to flutter in the breeze. A white crossbuck gate bridges the gap between two hedges: a subtle barrier of exclusive privacy. A humble white cottage glows in the sunlight towards the back of the yard. And beyond this expanse of trees and green grass, lies the silver surface of the sea.

In “Island Life”, Persson offers a clear view of the sea, flanked by the lush greenery she’s smitten with. Docks reach out from the shoreline into the sea, and sailboats bob and sway atop the silky blue surface. Situated within the shade, and looking out towards the bright open water, the viewer finds rest, as if they are sitting on the very hill Persson has placed us on.

In “Everything is Everything”, Persson presents the shining sea in all its glory. The power of the vast ocean, the momentum of waves approaching shore, and the gentle shallow recession from the sand is intoxicatingly calming. Persson has captured all of this under a bright sun which casts sparkles across the painting.

That same effervescent shimmer is present in “Direct Beach Access” which places the viewer in the back yard of a waterfront home. A privet hedge lines the property line, and wooden steps lead down to the dock. The yard is adorned with bushes of hydrangeas and reaching pollinators. The sea reflects the blue sky above it and leads the eye towards distant peninsulas.

In addition to these striking landscapes, Persson also delivers sumptuous close-ups of roses, hydrangeas, and white dogwood blossoms, and ventures into moodier territory with stormy weather scenes like “I'm as Free as the Breeze”. A glimpse of NYC's Central Park and one small painting of her Australian homeland round out the show, offering a telling contrast in landscape.

Emily Persson's solo debut at The Grenning Gallery is a homecoming of sorts — not for the artist, but for the landscape itself, seen clearly for the first time through an outsider's eyes. The exhibition runs May 2-25, 2026, at 26 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY. Opening Reception is Saturday, May 2nd, 5:30-7:00pm. For inquiries, please contact the gallery at 631-725-8469.

The Grenning Gallery is pleased to present Primavera, an exhibition of new work by Canadian-born, New York–based painter Kristy Gordon, accentuated by the colorful whimsy of world-renowned artist, Hunt Slonem. On view from April 4 through April 28, 2026, the exhibition is anchored by its namesake oil painting measuring 50 by 87 inches and brings together a suite of new paintings that mark a lyrical evolution in Gordon's ongoing exploration of myth, transformation, and the sacred feminine. Join us for the Opening Reception on Saturday, April 4th, 5:30-7:00pm, where Kristy Gordon be present.

The heart of the exhibition, Primavera (2026), is a monumental canvas that invites the viewer into a world poised between the earthly and the eternal. Like Botticelli's timeless allegory before it, Gordon's Primavera is dense with symbolism and tenderness. Figures move through a verdant forest, draped in light and color that feels both ancient and urgently alive.  A child carefully skims the surface of a babbling brook, hovering over the mystery of what lies beneath. A contemporary depiction of the Three Graces dances in a circle, enrobed by rays of sunlight. A pair of deer stand in the center, beneath an ethereal form of Mother Nature, while on the far right, a pair of lovers step into the forest with open arms. Massive pink lilies bloom in the foreground of the composition, reminding the viewer that despite human interference, the purity of nature will always prevail.

In As Above So Below, Gordon sought inspiration from Jan van Eyck’s The Last Judgement (c.1438), reinterpreting the Flemish masterpiece in contemporary terms. Gordon’s tableau showcases the divide between the realms of the living and the dead. The underworld beneath the earth’s surface - once thought to be hell - now serves as a catalyst for regeneration: a glowing forge where bodies are chewed up by mysterious creatures only to be reincarnated as beautiful flowers.

In van Eyck’s painting, the central figure is Archangel Michael, a revered spiritual warrior who protects heaven from darkness; yet in Gordon’s work, she is merely an unarmed child. Above, is meant to represent Heaven - made explicit in van Eyck’s original, where Christ rises as the foremost figure in the sky’s center. Gordon, however, presents that central figure as a woman pirouetting in place, an orb of light glowing where her head would be. The masses might be expected to appear elated at having reached heaven, yet Gordon’s crowd seems on edge, bracing for what lies ahead. Two camouflage-clad figures aim pistols at each other, pointedly addressing the epidemic of gun violence in contemporary society. Perhaps above is just as chaotic as below.

These mythic and spiritual currents run not only through Gordon’s imagery, but into the very materials she has chosen for this body of work. This year, Gordon has employed ancient pigments derived from earth's natural minerals. Lapis Lazuli, a velvety blue stone, has been used to adorn art and decorative objects as far back as ancient Egypt, and makes frequent appearances in Gordon’s new series of paintings. Revered historically as a gemstone of royalty, truth, and wisdom, it is often associated with the Third Eye chakra, fostering deep enlightenment. Malachite - known as the stone of transformation and a protector from negative energy - yields vibrant green hues. Azurite, known as the stone of heaven, symbolizes deep insight and enhanced intuition, and offers deeper blue tones. Rhodonite, a rose-red mineral, is often called the stone of love or the rescue stone, symbolizes self-love, compassion, and solace from grief.

The works of Hunt Slonem (b. 1951, Maine, USA), which accentuate this exhibition, carry a spiritual depth that is easy to underestimate at first glance. Though some viewers are quick to read Slonem as a fashion-forward pop artist, few realize that he meditates and prays for hours before picking up a brush each day — and that while painting, he regards each canvas as a kind of mantra, imbued with its own distinct energy at the moment of its creation. His iconic subjects — bunnies, birds, butterflies, and flowers — are chosen with reverence and intent, not merely rendered as likenesses. Slonem was born in 1951, the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese Zodiac, and the rabbit has become his most enduring motif: in Christianity, it represents rebirth, fertility, and resurrection; in Buddhism, humility, kindness, and compassion. That the same image can hold such varied meaning speaks to Slonem's all-encompassing spirituality — one that leaves the door open for whatever conclusion the viewer wishes to draw. It is a generosity that has earned him a massive following, an extraordinarily in-demand market, and a global reputation built across more than 250 museum collections worldwide.

In reaching back to ancient images and ancient earth, Gordon finds a language for the present moment — one that is luminous, searching, and very much alive. Slonem, too, is an artist in perpetual communion with something larger than himself, returning day after day to the same sacred subjects, finding in repetition not monotony but deepening meaning. Together, these two artists remind us that the spiritual and the painterly have never truly been separate, and that art, at its most sincere, is always an act of devotion. The Grenning Gallery invites you to experience this extraordinary body of work and to join us in celebrating two artists who are each, in their own way, at the height of their powers.