C Fine Art Gallery opens on Shelter Island this weekend

Shelter Island has always been a home for artists and writers; an inspiring hub where makers come to create. And as of this Friday, there’s a new space where art lovers can go to engage with that East End creative force.

C Fine Art Gallery, owned by Cheryl Sokolow, opens on the Island this Friday, July 3, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. to fête its first exhibit, “The Cadence of Form,” featuring 22 works of dimensional art both inside and out in the newly refurbished back garden of the gallery’s brick-and-mortar space at 21 N. Ferry Road.

Ms. Sokolow, a private art dealer and curator, has been the force behind exhibits like “Uncommon Ground” with the Peconic Land Trust at Bridge Gardens and “Organic Abstraction” at the Southampton Arts Center, and has worked in private sculpture acquisitions for over 20 years. For the last 15, she’s been a Shelter Island resident, and the notion of finding a way to extend her work and passion as an art dealer and curator into a space just a mile down the road from her home was too exciting to pass up. 

The curation of this first exhibit grew from a few points of interest for Ms. Sokolow; the first being this collection of creators tend to focus more on the notion of form, technique and where and how the materials guide them, rather than an idea that confines the work to a particular meaning. 

Instead, the thread that pulls together the different pieces in Sokolow’s show is a sense of movement. 

“They all have a particular movement and cadence; a natural response to the artist’s hand, because the material will respond differently to the touch and technique,” she said, “and that’s very interesting to me to show a variety of that idea.”

She’s also featuring the work of a few multi-generational artists, including the work of her own artist mother, Isobel Fold Sokolow, as well as father-son artists, Bill Barrett and Kevin Barrett. 

“Kevin Barrett creates bronze, large scale works, some over 6’. He’s a brilliant sculptor and I find his work is lyrical and musical,” Ms. Sokolow said. Another artist featured in the show, Norman Mooney, is inspired by patterns and repetition in nature. “He has a series called ‘Butterly Effect’ that’s about nature’s phenomenon and patterns in nature.”

“Cadence” will run through the end of August at C Fine Art Gallery, and other exhibits are in the works as well, including the all-female show “Women of Depth” which will launch later this summer. And Ms. Sokolow doesn’t plan to shutter after Tumbleweed Tuesday, with more exhibits planned through the holidays. 

She’s launching her gallery at an interesting time on the island. With the new non-profit Shelter Island Arts Center at 23 North Ferry Road, the hands-on Earth + Ore Studio a few doors down, Maju gallery on Bridge Street, several smaller galleries in the Center, the by-appointment Chamberlain Estate, which holds the much-lauded work of John Chamberlain, and the annual ArtSI studio tour, to name just a few, it seems the Island is poised to become a serious destination for art lovers interested in a less-formal way to engage with an artist’s work. 

“I want to hopefully be part of this burgeoning creativity and culture happening on Shelter Island,” she said. “I feel like it’s ripe for it.”

C Fine Art Gallery at 21 North Ferry Road is open Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment.