Gallery Opening / Sugar, Haykin Show: Substance, with Style

By C.S. GILBERT

 

Lucky Street Gallery’s pairing of two rock stars in the firmament of local fine art, queen of clouds Susan Sugar (“Blue Skies”) and king of surprise Michael Haykin (“What I See”), opened quietly late last week, with the gala artists’ reception set for this evening from 6:30 till 8:30 p.m.

 

Ruler of sea-and-sky watercolors, and in this show both wee and large oils, Sugar shows a collection of mostly new paintings, with a very few going back to the 1990s; one can tell because almost all the work is both signed and dated. Sugar creates her small watercolors, with her signature clouds, sometimes rain-laden but more often luminous, for which she is probably best known “as studies for her larger work and also as a journal,” gallery owner Sandra McMannis said.

 

In general, however, “Susan is working in a larger format” these days, including two commanding, magically-colored abstracts, “Kiss the Day Goodbye on Golden Wings” and “Song of the Wild Wind.” Of special interest also are those works actually “anchored,” as McMannis noted, with bits of land dividing sea and cloud-filled sky, quite rare in Sugar’s best-known work. Also unusual are a few night scenes.

 

Michael Haykin, too, has a few surprises for those who have long been fans of his work. Presaged by a couple of decidedly abstract-leaning canvases augmenting another Lucky Street show last year, here he displays two surprising trends. First of these is a fascination with insects, a delightful collection of colorful and — seriously — sometimes emotionally expressive small critters. It’s Haykin’s “challenge to paint something that hasn’t been painted before,” McMannis said — one of 16 separate, medium-sized paintings shown together, all different, complementing a number of other canvases on the insectivore theme.

 

The other surprise is the total abstraction of other Haykin canvases in the show. “He’s not afraid to change,” said McMannis in something of an understatement.

 

Both Sugar and Haykin have a keen eye for light. “They’re incredibly complementary,” commented versatile artist and editorial cartoonist Jon McIntosh, who was working at the gallery. Added McMannis, “There’s an interesting conversation going on.”

 

“Nice little surprises,” noted McIntosh.

 

Lucky Street Gallery is located at 540 Greene St. The Sugar-Haykin show runs through Feb. 12.

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