While one easily tires of hearing artists babble incessantly about the ambient light on the East End, there is no denying its gentle clarity and its profound impact on local painters in both process and appreciation.
As Chuck Close once noted of works done out here and then brought into the city: “I’m constantly telling people, you should have seen it in the country, where you can really see the color.”
Further, the role this distinctive element plays in this region is especially apparent during this time of year, as winter’s muted tones seem to fade and the light itself provides an atmospheric heralding of spring’s more open possibilities.

This is particularly apparent in the current exhibition at the Spanierman Gallery in East Hampton, titled “Light of Spring,” featuring 11 artists whose works, while stylistically broadly diverse, nevertheless are tied together by their common use of light as a powerful atmospheric component.

This has always been an elemental influence in Jane Wilson’s works, which—whether East End seascapes or landscapes echoing her Midwestern roots—are consistently reminiscent of the English painter John Constable’s observation that “the sky is the source of light in nature and it governs everything.”

In “Rain, Heavy at Times” (oil on linen, 2004), as in many of her works, Ms. Wilson uses a small strip of broad flat strokes to delineate the landscape over which the sky looms, its breadth stretching outwards seemingly toward eternity. This effect is accentuated by the transition in colors from dark blue to a glaring white that hovers just above the distant horizon, while the artist uses the texture of the canvas itself to conjure a heavy rain through which the sun is attempting to burst. While significantly more muted in coloration, Pamela Sztybel’s “Cloudbreak, Connecticut” (oil on canvas), strikes a similar tone in its immediate narrative, but uses a more energetic contrast in lights and darks to create its sense of atmosphere and drama.

Roy Nicholson’s new series, “Vernal Passages,” by contrast, uses a powerful white light that acts as a physical entity forcing the viewer to redefine the visual boundaries separating positive and negative space. Dominating the central areas of the compositions, the light pulses with a magnetic intensity, which, matched to the rhythmically expressionistic slashes of color along the sides, imparts a vibrant sense of movement and energy unbound.

Similarly, Gerson Lieber’s paintings also capture a feeling of animated and rhythmic motion, although this is arrived at through a use of form that is significantly more defined and structured. This form is notable in “Springs Idyll” (oil on linen, 1997), which is reminiscent of the Futurists, who drew on Cubist principles to create an architectonic manifestation of both light and energy. In “Garden Shadows” (oil on linen, 1991), on the other hand, there is minimal use of architectural forms and the overlapping planes of color take on more organic overtones, seemingly stretching upward the sun or bent over by an unseen wind.

This vigorous expression of energy is even further magnified in Frank Wimberley’s works, particularly “This One” (acrylic on canvas, 1999). The piece is dominated by wildly expressive brush strokes, while the artist’s use of paint echoes Hans Hofmann’s adage that “in nature, light creates the color while in the painting, color creates the light.”
Interestingly, while light serves as a singular component highlighting the title subjects in Priscilla Bowden’s “Two Yellow Trees” (acrylic on linen, 2003), the form that dominates the composition is a dead tree off to the side. With its gnarled and naked branches standing in marked contrast to the bright colors around it, the effect is to impart a strangely effective and quixotic atmosphere to the work.

Also on view are works by Robert Dash, Ty Stroudsburg, Deborah Black, Shari Abramson, Cornelia Foss, and Carol Hunt.

The exhibition “Light of Spring” at the Spanierman Gallery in East Hampton continues through April 21.