This summer, Surfari Crossroads will welcome works from featured artist Greg Miller. Join the Sag Harbor-based gallery for its 2016 Surfboard Installation event on Saturday, July 16th from 5 to 7 p.m. Guests will have an opportunity to meet the artist, sip wine by Orin Swift, and enjoy music and entertainment.
“I paint paintings on top of paintings on top of paintings. I’ll glue down something I love, like an old Steinbeck book page for page, and create another painting on top of that; I build up sort of an abstract history,” Miller explained. “I would go around Venice Beach, collect old surfboards that people were throwing away and considered useless, paint on them and donate them to charities like St. Jude’s. I loved the mythology and heroic quality of the boards, each one having its own secret history, but I really only did that on the side, as donations, until collectors started to become interested. The boards just really caught on.”
Surfari is a collaborative gallery between local realtor, entrepreneur, and surfer John Healey and artist and surfer Greg Miller. The inspiration behind the gallery was born out of both Healey and Miller’s personal backgrounds, as well as their love of surfing and newfound friendship. Miller’s work, largely considered “post-pop,” mimics the Pop Art sensation of the 1960’s and 1970’s. His vintage, hand-painted, collaged, and recycled surfboards are collectibles. His art, and the gallery as a whole, reflects the relaxed and creative nature of the surfboard “shaper’s shops” both Healey and Miller were drawn to as children. With Healey’s entrepreneurship and Miller’s unique artistic abilities – along with a yearning for a new type of art gallery in the Hamptons – they decided to open Surfari Crossroads.
Many of the boards on display at Surfari Crossroads come from Long Island’s oldest surf shops. Healey and Miller are able to bring life back into boards with old histories.
“Surfing is an addiction that anyone can have….It’s a sport unlike any other, and the energy around it is so joyful and infectious it crosses all boundaries of gender, race, status, and generations,” added Healey.
Surfari Crossroads is located at 16B Main Street in Sag Harbor. For more information, call 631-899-4677 or visit surfaricrossroads.com.