The Grenning Gallery is pleased to announce our latest exhibition, Land, sea, and light featuring brand new works from Viktor Butko, Terry Elkins, and Melissa Franklin Sanchez.

From the beaches of Long Island’s East End and the harbors of coastal Maine to sunlit Italian gardens and intimate window views, the exhibition considers how land, water, and changing light shape our sense of place.

The exhibition will open on Saturday October 17th, with a reception that evening from 5:00-7:00pm. While Melissa Franklin Sanchez is unable to attend, Viktor Butko and Terry Elkins will both be present at the opening reception. The public is warmly invited to attend. The exhibition will run through Sunday November 8th.

Melissa Franklin Sanchez (b.1984, Warwickshire, England) returns to Grenning Gallery with a shimmering new series of oil paintings that celebrate the beauty she observes daily at her home in Tuscany. The largest painting in her new series, As the stars align, captures an expansive view of the night sky, as clouds and stars revel overhead. Franklin Sanchez’s use of oil on brass grants the piece a spectacular luminosity that truly captures the experience of stargazing on a clear and quiet night.

Windows and doorways, a beloved subject of Franklin Sanchez’s, explore the connection between the internal and external. The music room presents a pleasant look at her two young children at ease, Raphael sits poised at the piano, backlit by the grandeur of the glowing outdoors behind him. Just beyond the ornate door, is her daughter Iris, relaxing in a rocking chair, gazing out at their verdant yard. Spring light offers a similar subject, but with a subtle mysteriousness. The interior is barren, all furniture and signs of life indoors have melted away, aiming our focus on the set of open French doors. Maya, the artist's beloved dog soaks up some sun at the edge of the door.

A world of possibilities presents an interior view of the artist’s home, backlit by a large double window revealing a picturesque day. Inside, a young girl, the artist’s daughter, stands at a table re-potting seedlings in preparation for the next growing season. Several cut flowers sit in vases before her, while various potted sprigs on the windowsill bask in the afternoon light.

In Stargazer, the artist’s daughter stands at the window, looking out at the night sky. The bright lights of distant houses dot the landscape in tandem with the stars above. Beneath the windowsill, the dark interior of the home is speckled with its own spots of light, bringing elements of the exterior world into the interior experience.

Franklin Sanchez’s new works also include several floral landscapes, such as Amongst the wildflowers, My rose garden, and Spring in the allotment. Smaller works, including Peonies in may, My hydrangeas, Wildflowers in may, and Daffodils, turn to individual blooms through the spring, each rendered in oil on copper, whose metallic surface lends the flowers a quiet glow.

Viktor Butko (b. 1978, Moscow, Russia) returns to Grenning Gallery for his 10th year, with another brilliant series of landscapes.

The sunset captures an idyllic snapshot of a coastal home at the end of the day, just before the sun begins to retreat under the horizon. The pale pink rays cast a creamy glow over the quiet harbor as a lone boat passes through. The Cape Cod–style cottage features a large wooden deck upon which two figures observe the majestic setting sun. Lupine blooms adorn the steep grassy foreground while a single evergreen stands tall on the far right.

Sailboats also celebrates the beauty of coastal Maine, overlooking a small town facing the water. Two massive sailboats traverse the harbor while smaller motorboats and dinghies pass underneath. Small islands dot the background, replete with evergreen trees, while grey clouds half-cover the pale blue sky. Butko’s depiction of the sky offers insight into his painterly technique…negative space outlines each cloud, accentuating a subtle light permeating through an overcast sky.

The meadow is a stylistic departure from Butko’s previous work, taking a distinctly pointillist approach in rendering a thriving meadow in front of a white colonial home. The large white house is not the focal point, bt simply a distant presence in the composition. The main character in this painting is the eponymous meadow. The verdant foreground extends through 4/5ths of the canvas. White puffs of dandelion blooms almost appear to sway amongst the blades of grass and wildflowers rendered in choppy strokes. This allover motif brings to mind the elaborately decorated landscapes of Gustav Klimt.

Still life brings the garden to the table, where white roses and purple irises spill from a pitcher and a cobalt glass vase across a summer-green checkered tablecloth. Situated outdoors, with a sunlit lawn and calm water beyond. The subject takes solace beneath the canopy of a tree, its low hanging leaves adorning the uppermost part of the composition. Sunlight persists through the leaves and glistens in dappled dots across the table.

As the only local resident to the East End in this exhibition, Terry Elkins (b. 1951, Vicksburg, Mississippi) delivers views of his favorite spots. A monumental 10-foot-wide panorama of turquoise waves curling towards shore. A gradient sky shifts from grey to pink above the horizon. Rows of white capped waves stretch across the canvas, but the most mesmerizing aspect of this composition is the shallow water gliding back and forth from the sand. Layers creep across the sand like translucent blankets. This large scale composition allows the viewer to lose themselves entirely in the grandeur of the un-encumbered sea.

Wainscott pond offers a warmer atmosphere. A pale rose sky meets a lavender shelf of clouds atop the horizon. A defined line of green trees surrounds a thin band of water, while dry golden grasses fill the foreground in soft, hushed tones. A tenderly depicted plot of untouched and, (we are thrilled to report) newly preserved, land in East Hampton.

Elkins is not shy to present our desirable region in sub-optimal weather. The beauty of the Hamptons does not come to a stop on Labor Day. It persists throughout the off season, and although the crowds miss out on this beauty, Elkins devotes his energy to capture it. In Ducking the squall towering cumulus clouds build above open water; a distant shower of rain pours into the sea. A composition dedicated to angry clouds engulfing what was a clear blue sky.

In Winter barn a long semi-subterranean barn peeks out of a snow-covered field beneath a darkening sky. This humble farmhand architecture blends into the landscape, asleep under a bed of snow.

A group of paintings returns to a single view of railroad tracks receding between tall, shadowed trees toward a glowing pink sky. The single-track railway that extends to Montauk has been operating for over a century, and although rarely considered by visitors, persists today. And is omnipresent in the daily life of Elkins, who’s studio sits adjacent to them.