Community Residency

During our annual Community Residency, we invite selected artists of the East End to work on campus at The Church to enrich and foster artistic community and dialogue. For 2023, we are delighted to welcome Roisin Bateman, Andrea Cote, Norm Paris, Sharon Van Liempt Brown, Amy Wickersham, and John Wittenberg to join us in residence! Read more about each artist below:

Roisin Bateman began her life and her art in the west of Ireland, and the rough textures of the Irish rock and sea are still in her brushstroke. In that landscape nature is veiled in soft light, mist, and rain, and the seasons change only gradually. Bateman says that in Ireland she became aware of processes in nature that she could sense but not quite see.In 1986 she moved to the South Fork of the eastern end of Long Island, a narrow peninsula surrounded by creeks, bays and open ocean. Here brilliant light is reflected back from the water and sand dunes, illuminating every object, sharpening every tone and hue. What Bateman had dimly glimpsed in Ireland became vivid on Long Island. Bateman is not a “landscape artist” in the traditional sense. Rather, nature’s laws of metamorphosis inform her work. Each painting unfolds as a plant might grow, step by step – between polarities of activity and stillness, what is hidden and what is revealed, gravity and levity – till at last it stands by itself, having reached its particular balance and end.

Andrea Cote is an interdisciplinary artist working in photography, video, printmaking, and performance. Her practice encompasses studio-based work, mixed-media installations, and public projects that involve community participation. Based In Hampton Bays, she has exhibited her work in North and South America at venues including Islip Art Museum, Delaware Art Museum, Abrons Arts Center, The Print Center, The Moore Gallery, and PanAmerican Art Projects. Her performances have been featured at The Watermill Center, The Neuberger Museum, The Philadelphia Fringe Festival, The Peekskill Project, Chashama, The Dumbo Arts Festival, and Photo Buenos Aires. She is the recipient of several grants including NYSCA Creative Individuals Grants in 2014 and 2018, two SOS grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a fellowship at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. She received a NYSCA Artist Support Grant with the Patchogue Arts Council for a community project for 2023.

Norm Paris is a painter and printmaker who grew up in Cleveland, OH, a city whose industrial and civic history has profoundly influenced the way he thinks about space. He is interested in over-built structures, struggling icons and failed reenactments of old myths. Paris earned his BFA from RISD and his MFA from the Yale School of Art. He has lectured at Yale, Arcadia University, the Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Tyler School of Art and has been teaching drawing at RISD since 2008.Paris was a Pew Fellowship finalist in 2005 and won the Ralph Mayer Prize for excellence in methods and materials at Yale in 2002. His work is part of the permanent collections at the Jewish Museum in New York, among other noted collections, and was recently on view at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, Samson Projects in Boston and the Proposition in New York City.

Sharon Van Liempt Brown is an artist working in watercolor, oil, ink, photos, and design. Sharon has attempted to capture energy in her paintings. Inspired by a profound spiritual experience while visiting Bhutan, Sharon recognized a deep interconnectivity with the world around her. She said, “I became aware that I am part of everything, every blade of grass, every grain of sand. We are all one…energy is our common denominator. She has spent her life involved with creative endeavors. Her studies include art and photography at Howard University, cinematography in NYC, video arts at NYU, painting with Dutch artist Lux Buurman in the Hague, Netherlands, and design at Arsutoria School of Design in Milan, Italy.

Amy Wickersham is an East End artist, previously residing in NYC, now a resident of Sag Harbor, NY. She works in mixed media including drawing, collage, painting and printmaking. She has had one-person shows at: Clic Gallery, East Hampton, NY; Fox and Fowle Gallery, New York, NY; and Dorry Gates Gallery, Kansas City, MO. Group exhibitions include: Studio 11, Easthampton, NY; The Fireplace Project with Folioeast, East Hampton, NY; Malia Mills with Folioeast, East Hampton, NY; Ashawagh Hall with Folioeast; Simms Design & Gallery, Shelter Island, NY; Chaos Theory Gallery, Sag Harbor, NY; The Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, MO; The Spannocchia Foundation, Rosia, Italy; Historical Society, Rye, NY; The Nix Gallery, New York, NY; Washington Square Park Gallery/Small Works Show, New York, NY; and Kenise Barnes Gallery, Larchmont, NY. Her work has been reviewed in various publications including The New York Times, The New Art Examiner, and The Kansas City Star.

John Wittenberg’s eye is drawn to the physical world, how light and shadow play on surfaces, the way nature cycles between growth, decay, and renewal. He observes the beauty of imperfections, how objects change in varying light, and at the nexus where different surfaces meet. Wittenberg has been inspired by these transformations my entire career. The dimensions of his sculpture vary from small intimate experiences to large pieces that interact with the environment. Wittenberg prefers to work in steel, stone, wood, and paper, all of which allow him to explore my ideas.