A special magic happens when exhibition space and artist—the gallery and the studio—align harmonically. Such is the scenario at Long Island’s Sag Harbor Cinema, a redoubtable movie theater that is simultaneously a revival house and an exhibitor of current films. Extending the scope of its programming beyond film projection, the Cinema has presented two creatively curated shows of movie-themed work by painter Sabina Streeter within the last three years. The daughter of German documentary filmmaker Eva Hassencamp, Streeter grew up with a profound respect for the powerful, compelling celluloid medium, and the immortals who bring it to life.
With timeless skill, Streeter’s portrait practice makes historical figures appear contemporary, while her modern-day subjects echo the Old Masters. Sketching the grinning image of legendary curator Alanna Heiss, for instance, art world movie star, founding director of P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (later known as MoMA P.S. 1) and Clocktower Productions, Streeter captures Heiss at a particularly mirthful moment, a white cloth napkin playfully plopped upon her head like a seventeenth-century bonnet. The untitled result—an unmistakable likeness that calls to mind the deft portraiture of Judith Leyster, a lesser-known, and arguably more gifted, contemporary of Frans Hals—could easily be an outtake from a convincing period film about, say, The Merry Lace Maker of Antwerp.
Streeter’s signature portraits—always enacting narratives, sometimes caught in mid-conversation—populate her movie-themed paintings: still images that expectantly pulse with suspended movement, like a motion picture DVD on pause. Inviting viewers to play a part in the scenes depicted, these works offer an alternative portal for audiences to plug into film’s fleeting, fascinating allure: dramas on canvas (and paper).
Her most recent exhibition, seen this Summer at Sag Harbor Cinema and titled “Vacanze Romane,” transported viewers to mid-twentieth-century Italy, where popular mini-magazines called Fotoromanzi burnished the glamour of Cinecittà with comic-book-style narratives that proved irresistible to cinephiles of all ages. Like storyboards for a silent film, Fotoromanzi offered staged photos of actors, their dialogue conveyed via text balloons. (In Streeter’s homage to Fotoromanzi, dialogue that speaks to the artist appears as hand-lettered subtitles.)
In 2022, Streeter paid tribute to a friend and colleague of her mother’s—the celebrated Hollywood director Douglas Sirk—with imagery inspired by the latter’s movies. Those works were exhibited at Sag Harbor Cinema during its retrospective of Sirk’s films, “Tarnished Angels” (also the title of his 1957 movie adaptation of William Faulkner’s story Pylon, about daredevil stunt aviators). Once again, the films and their corresponding artworks—notably, Sabina made several portraits of Dorothy Malone, star of both Tarnished Angels and Written On The Wind—enhanced the movie experience for Sag Harbor Cinema’s ticket holders.
“I use charcoal and oil in typically large format and the work consists of gestural drawings and paintings that reflect the source material, numerous screenshots of my favorite postwar films,” says the artist. “After selecting the most evocative images, in my eyes, I incorporate text, not necessarily based on the original still.” With the Fotoromanzi series, she adds, it was important that the subtitle captions be in Italian, “a crucial element for maintaining authenticity.”
Explains Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, Artistic Director of Sag Harbor Cinema, “It is not only that Sabina Streeter’s artwork is directly inspired by frames of certain films: the intrinsic kinetic quality of her paintings evokes a special relationship with the medium, heightened by the autobiographical component she brings to her choice of subjects. This has made for a very exciting interaction between screen and canvas in the two shows we hosted, so far. I look forward to more.” G&S
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