Visual Art & Artists
Upcoming Events
Anastasia Samoylova examines how contemporary life is shaped, mediated, and mythologized through images. With multiple photographs included in our Summer exhibition, This Land: Considering the American Landscape, Samoylova invites viewers to examine the entanglement of environmental crisis, consumer spectacle, and political imagination, revealing the tensions between surface structure, seduction, and instability, reality and representation.
Samoylova is joined in conversation by Seph Rodney, PhD, co-curator of This Land. The two will explore the work included in the show, her process, and artistic vision before opening the floor to an illuminating Q&A with the audience.
Samoylova is a highly respected artist known to create vibrant work that catches the beauty of location while juxtaposing it with the troubling consequences of climate change, gentrification, and political extremism. Her work moves across photography, painting, and installation and has been exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Norton Museum of Art, the Saatchi Gallery, Fundación MAPFRE, and C/O Berlin, among others, and is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Pérez Art Museum Miami, and the High Museum of Art.
We invite you to view Samoylova’s selected photography included in our summer exhibition during our exhibition hours: Thursday – Monday, 11 AM – 5 PM.
As part of This Land: Considering the American Landscape, The Church presents a talk with Executive Director Sheri Pasquarella exploring the origins of American art, artists, and the art market beginning with the Hudson River School. Drawing connections between the exhibition's 19th-century paintings and contemporary artists working today, the lecture will examine how ideas about landscape, nationhood, community, and value have shaped American art for nearly two centuries.
This Land juxtaposes works from the Hudson River School—America's first major art movement—with contemporary artists whose practices both draw upon and challenge enduring notions of the American landscape. Less widely known is that this same period also witnessed the emergence of the American art market, the founding of some of the nation's earliest museums and art schools, and the development of collecting practices that continue to influence the global contemporary art world.
What was the Hudson River School, and why did it become so influential? How did its rise coincide with the creation of America's cultural institutions? When did the term "speculator" first enter conversations about emerging artists and the art market? And how do these histories continue to shape the ways art is exhibited and collected today?
Drawing on nearly a decade of independent research presented at Yale University, Columbia University, Christie's Education, and other institutions, Pasquarella will place American art in the broader context of culture, community-building, and the market, offering a fascinating look at the historical forces that continue to shape artistic production and patronage today.
Join us for a stellar performance from poetic powerhouse Pamela Sneed! Following a sold out run at Joe’s Pub last year, Sneed’s A Tribute to Big Mama Thornton comes to The Church for a rollicking evening of music, storytelling, and a celebration of the unsung Black woman founder of rock and roll, who brought us classics like “Blue Suede Shoes,” and “You Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog.”
Written and conceived by Sneed, A Tribute to Big Mama Thornton is a cabaret performance that sees a live band weaving together monologue as Sneed sings, speaks, and celebrates the life and music of Willie Mae Thornton’s. With an eye toward restorative justice, this performance gives credit back to Thornton’s musical legacy and is a valuable educational asset. Sneed is joined by band members Viva DeConcini (musical director) Mara Rosenbloom, and David A. Barnes.
Find your pathway to transcendence, your benefits in stress relief, and awaken your creativity as Bob Roth, Transcendental Meditation (TM) teacher and CEO of the David Lynch Foundation welcomes audiences to take a deep dive into the science of mediation. With over 50 years of experience teaching TM, the mental health luminary shares the inner workings and the techniques that have helped over 1.5 million people. Following the discussion there will be a thoughtful Q&A.
Bob Roth and the David Lynch Foundation have done extensive work to reverse the harmful effects of trauma and toxic stress through serving at-risk communities including urban youth, frontline healthcare workers, first responders, women survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, and veterans who suffer from PTSD. Their work elevates individuals, helping them become agents of their own wellness, fostering the creativity needed to shape their life with confidence. In alignment with The Church’s mission to inspire creativity on the East End and our own recurring wellness series, we look forward to this thoughtful collaboration and how it can benefit our community.
Proceeds from this event will benefit The Church and The David Lynch Foundation.
The 6th Annual Celebrating Creatives of Color returns and for the third time will be hosted at The Church! The event showcases creative artists and authors of color from Sag Harbor and beyond, providing an opportunity for them to display their work and interact with art and literature enthusiasts and collectors. All artwork and books will be for sale.
Proceeds from the donated entry fees will help support The Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreation Center and The Church. Likewise, artists will donate 10% of their total sales to support the community organizations.
This year, we are excited to announce the CCC is part of a weekend long celebration of Black Culture with the Apollo, CAAPA, and the National Black theater. We are also excited to offer special programming as part of this annual celebration!
10:30 AM – 12 PM: RSVP today and join us for special programming featuring Harriette Cole, author & lifestylist, Muriel Monik Johnson, storyteller & artist, ReShonda Tate, author of The Queen of Sugar Hill & With Love From Harlem. All books will be available for purchase and to be signed after remarks. Following the authors, Nanette Carter will be presented with the Living Legend Award. Then join us as we welcome esteemed academic and author Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr. The author of We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For and Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lesson for Our Own, sits down with ABC News Anchor and correspondent Linsey Davis, to share insight and inspiration. Space is limited – RSVP in advance today!
Purchase a grab-and-go treat from Deanna Smith, the party perfectionist, and linger to enjoy all the fair has to offer!
Visual Artists to include Patrick Earl-Barnes, Elyse Beavers, Jamel Carroll, Andrew Caynon, Karim Chambers, Earlene Cox, Jeremy Dennis, Shimoda Donna Emmanuel, Faith Evans, Laura Gadson, Beverly “Bebe” Granger, Garry Grant, Judith Henriques-Adams, Rod Ivey, Jennifer Ivey, Muriel Monik Johnson, Donna Ladson, Collette McGuire, Shawn Rhea, Andrew Worrell, and Sheniqua Young (Shea Design)! List in formation.
A warm wave of gratitude to the event organizers and Village of Sag Harbor residents from the Sag Harbor Hills and Ninevah Communities: Beverly Granger, Victoria Pinderhughes, Paula Taylor, and Olivia White. Their efforts have helped revive and refresh the Historically Black Beach Communities’ history of supporting local charities through the arts.
Reflect on ecology, sustainability, and interconnectedness with esteemed sculptor Meg Webster as she joins co-curator Donna De Salvo in conversation. Examining her two sculptures Moss Bed King (1986-88/2026) and Steel Containing Salt (1990), which are both included in the summer exhibition This Land: Considering the American Landscape, Webster and DeSalvo enter into organic dialogue centered on Webster’s work as a whole. Following the discussion, there will be an insightful Q&A.
Working primarily with organic materials such as moss, water, stone, wood, and soil, Webster transforms natural elements into immersive sculptural environments. Her work invites viewers to consider nature as a vital and inseparable part of human experience rather than something distant or remote from daily life. Webster’s work contributes to important 20th century artistic movements and innovations, lending itself specifically to Land Art and Minimalism. Webster’s two sculptures can be viewed ahead of the talk during our exhibition hours: Thursday – Monday between 11 AM – 5 PM.
Arcmanoro Niles, esteemed East End visual artist and visionary, joins us as our August Insight Sunday speaker. Included in This Land: Considering The American Landscape, Niles has created a unique painting specifically for the exhibition. Niles invites audiences to see deeply into the work, learn about his process, and gain insight into the wellspring of his creativity. Following the discussion there will be a Q&A and the audience will then be led upstairs into the gallery to view the work in person.
A painter known for working with vivid and bright hues, Niles’s new painting is reflective of how much landscape has become a part of his practice. He says, “I began to realize how important my relationship to nature was. In this painting I wanted to capture the feeling of the day ending looking out into the fading sky, an attempt to connect and reset watching the sunset, contemplating what tomorrow might bring.”
Explore the interpretation of homeland and landscape with award-winning Indigenous visual artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and descendant of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, Hopinka’s work examines the correlation between language and culture in relation to home and land. Joined in conversation by The Church’s Executive Director Sheri Pasquarella, Hopinka will speak about his body of work, including the four video works included in This Land: Considering the American Landscape, his creative process, and the importance of Indigenous cinema in our cinematic landscape. Following the discussion there will be a Q&A with the audience and the opportunity to view the works in the main gallery space.
Hopinka has described his work to Filmmaker Magazine, saying: “deconstructing language [through cinema] is a way for me to be free from the dogma of traditional storytelling and then, from there, to explore or purpose more of what Indigenous cinema has the possibility to look like.” The award-winning filmmaker, whose films have shown in various festivals including Sundance, New York Film Festival, among others, digs deep into the personal and is reflected through documentary and other forms of non-fiction media.
Currently an assistant professor of film for Harvard University, Hopinka invites audiences to learn, reflect, and examine the Indigenous landscape of this land.
Stop by during our exhibition hours Thursday – Monday, 11 AM – 5 PM, to view Hopinka’s work in person and to take in the work of over a dozen additional artists included in This Land.
