The Watermill Center & Estia’s Little Kitchen: Exhibition of Artist Piper Bangs, ‘Flora II’ / thru 5.14.23

a laboratory for the arts and humanities

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The Watermill Center & Estia’s Little Kitchen

Announce a New Exhibition by Artist Piper Bangs

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SAG HARBOR, NY (March 3, 2023) – The Watermill Center and Estia’s Little Kitchen (1615 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike) are pleased to announce “Flora II,” an exhibition of new works by artist Piper Bangs. “Flora II” is a series of intimately scaled oil paintings of wildflowers and cultivated plants that the artist encountered during her visits to The Watermill Center, Quail Hill Farm, and Estia’s Little Kitchen. The exhibition opened at Estia’s Little Kitchen on Monday, February 13, 2023, and will be on view to the restaurant’s patrons through May 14, 2023. All proceeds from the sale of the works will support the artist’s emerging career and The Watermill Center’s mission and programs.

“My first contact with Piper’s work was at a high school group exhibition in San Antonio, Texas; maybe she was 16 years old at the time. Instantly one felt the sensitivity of her line, and I immediately started purchasing works. It would not be going too far to say that Piper is a prodigy in the realm of botanical illustration. Prodigies are not necessarily prodigious; Piper is. Since her initial days at The Watermill Center in the summer of 2022, Piper created an astounding 70 botanical oil paintings…and counting.” – Noah Khoshbin, Curator of The Watermill Center

“Flora II” builds upon her solo exhibition, “Flora,” presented during The Watermill Center’s 2022 Annual Summer Benefit. Her solo debut featured paintings inspired by the plants and flowers from The Watermill Center’s Clementine Hunter Garden. During her show, she had the opportunity to meet Chef Colin Ambrose of Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor. Colin has a long-standing relationship with The Watermill Center, particularly as Chef for its Artist’s Table Brunches and Summer Gala Benefit Dinners. They talked at length about Piper’s work and Colin’s rich history of presenting artwork at Little Estia’s. The conversation eventually segued into a discussion about Estia’s garden and Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, where Colin sources various spices and produce. The natural evolution of their talk blossomed into “Flora II”.

“The exhibition will celebrate each plant’s unique beauty and location,” Piper states. “Through my meditative painting process, I allow myself an interpretive hand to filter into and throughout each composition. This technique allows for a mixture of naturalism, observation, and improvisation. By using an intimate scale, tranquil background colors, and delicate compositions, I hope to share each plant’s understated dignity with the East End community.”

Piper Bangs is a painter raised in San Antonio, Texas, pursuing her BFA in Drawing and Painting at Laguna College of Art and Design. She lives and works in Laguna Beach, California. She recently received an honorable mention in the AXA Art Prize and a merit award from the National YoungArts Foundation and has exhibited her work in venues such as the National YoungArts Foundation in Miami, FL, the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in South Korea, the US Department of Education in Washington, D.C., the Pratt Manhattan Gallery in New York City, NY, Axis Gallery in Sacramento, CA, and The Contemporary at Blue Star in San Antonio, TX, among others.

Executive Chef-owner Colin Ambrose opened Estia’s Little Kitchen in Amagansett, New York, in 1990 and moved the restaurant, and its vegetable garden, to the Sag Harbor turnpike location in 1999. Chef Ambrose was one of the founders on the East End of the slow food movement. Featuring Mexican American fare, Chef Ambrose grows a good deal of vegetables and herbs for his restaurant and uses Long Island meats and seafood as much as possible. Chef Ambrose is also the host-producer for The American Rivers Tour, where he looks to fellow chefs and locations, exploring new twists on Mexican and American fare along the way. He is a frequent partner of The Watermill Center, having been the featured chef for their Artists’ Table brunch series and devising the menu for their Annual Summer Benefit in 2022.

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Piper Bangs – “Flora II”
Exhibition Dates: February 13 – May 14, 2023
@ Estia’s Little Kitchen

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1615 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike Sag Harbor, NY 11963

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THE WATERMILL CENTER

Founded in 1992 by avant-garde visionary Robert Wilson, The Watermill Center is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities situated on ten acres of Shinnecock ancestral territory on Long Island’s East End. With an emphasis on creativity and collaboration, The Center offers year-round artist residencies and education programs, providing a global community with the time, space, and freedom to create and inspire.

The Watermill Center’s rural campus combines multifunctional studios with ten acres of manicured grounds and gardens, housing a carefully curated art collection, expansive research library, and archives illustrating the life and work of Artistic Director Robert Wilson. The Center’s facilities enable Artists-in-Residence to integrate resources from the humanities and research from the sciences into contemporary artistic practice. Through year-round public programs, The Watermill Center demystifies the artistic process by facilitating unique insight into the creative process of a rotating roster of national and international artists.

The Watermill Center’s programs are made possible by awards from Arison Arts Foundation, Brown Foundation, Cowles Charitable Trust, Cox Foundation, Earle I. Mack Foundation, David Hockney Inc., Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation, Fondation Musée Barbier-Mueller, Fondazione Carla Fendi, GRoW @ Annenberg, JAF Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation, The LLWW Foundation, Maria Bacardi Artist Scholarship, mediaThe foundation inc., National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, NYSCA/TDF TAP Plus, Paula Cooper, Inc., The Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust, May & Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Joseph & Sylvia Slifka Foundation, The Suffolk County Office of Economic Development, The Suffolk County Office of Film and Cultural Affairs, Town of Southampton, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and the Vos Family Foundation.

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