June 28 saw the opening reception of artist Luke Dougherty’s superbly ethereal “Here a Mist, There a Mist” at Hawk & Hive gallery in Andes, NY on show until July 27, 2025.
There is much more to this body of work and so the gallery show has been named “Part I” of the show. The artist will also host a one-day open studio and reception on July 13 2025 from noon – 3pm for a viewing of “Part II”.
Over the years since its opening, Hawk & Hive has shown art that has been reliably and consistently exceptional. Proprietor Jayne Parker has a discerning eye, always finding the best artists and shedding light with quiet, unwavering determination.
This latest exhibition, named for a line in an Emily Dickenson poem, is lush and rich, presented almost in a monotone, with deep charcoals, greys, browns and vivid blues. The images are dream-like and are inspired by the artist’s childhood spent in two wildly different places. He lived in Buffalo until he was five and then lived in California until he was 12 in a small beach town.
The juxtaposition of these two places are evident in his work. The colors evoke tones of the steel mills of an industrial, working class Buffalo and Dougherty states that he “feels a deep fealty to all of that. I’m proud of my Buffalo heritage and really connected. There are no greater hulking monsters than the steel mills. They were impactful”.
California seems to inspire much of the swirling wave-like themes in his work, but he describes himself as having been “intensely dreamy” as a child, and is also inspired by the dreams of others close to him. Speaking of California life, he says, “it kind of gets in you”.
“I was always inspired by the fog that would come in off the ocean” says Dougherty, who spent time in a small community of surfers. In the town where he lived, he says that “nothing was far from the water”.
Back in Buffalo by the age 12, he then left school at 15 and went to work on building sites. He moved to New York City at 18 and attended the Water Street Atelier, and later, the Art Students’ League.
He later got his art degree at SUNY Oneonta, then moved to the Catskills in 2005 and showed work at Sean Scherer’s gallery on Main Street in Andes for many years.
Some of the pieces in the new exhibition at Hawk & Hive are notably unfinished, as if the artist is baring his soul or inviting the viewer to peek behind the scenes into the world of the blank canvas. Asked what impression he is trying to give, he responds: “it took me a long time to learn how to not finish work. There is a moment when the piece gets really alive, and then you can finish it to death. I didn’t want that”.
After Sean Scherer moved to Franklin, Dougherty stopped doing shows there. “By then, I had got a little not quite satisfied with my art practice. I felt really restricted. There was something that I wasn’t doing that I ought to be. I was haunted by my academic training which had generated a certain amount of facility that wasn’t natural to me. There was a sense that there was something there that I was carrying around that wasn’t mine. I felt beholden to standards”.
“Art practice does not love rules. Painting has stopped being something willfully driven by me. It’s much more playful [now].”
What are his other inspirations? “I get up super early at 5am, drink a lot of coffee, and I draw a lot. I make sketches. Little pictures come to me. I take those and try to grow them. It [art] is all just in us. Those things just live in us”.
He received his MFA from the University of Buffalo in 2014 and is currently an adjunct professor at SUNY Oneonta, teaching drawing I & II.
Luke Dougherty: Here a Mist, There a Mist. June 28 – July 27, 2025. Hawk & Hive Gallery, 61 Main Street, Andes, NY 13731. www.hawkandhive.com
Open Studio & Reception on July 13, 1750 Main Street, Bovina NY 13740. Noon – 3pm. Studio visits are also available by appointment. Contact Jayne Parker: jayne@hawkandhive.com
This article first appeared in July 4th 2025 edition of the Catskills Mountain Eagle in the TriCounty News section.
Luke’s open studio is today from Noon – 3pm.