Bringing Some of the Rust Belt to Sag Harbor

Frank Oriti’s Paintings at Richard J. Demato

By ERIK PIEPENBURG

Published: August 15, 2013

The New York Times

"“Homeland,” at the Richard J. Demato Fine Arts Gallery in Sag Harbor, N.Y., is exhibiting the work of Frank Oriti, who paints detailed portraits of blue-collar protagonists, mostly relatives and friends from Parma, the Cleveland suburb where he was born and raised, and fellow steelworkers from the mill where he and his brother, a former Marine, labored. The paintings depict 20-somethings, mostly men, dressed casually in T-shirts and baseball caps, gazing out impassively, or with an edge of aggression. Mr. Oriti repeats motifs of the suburban homes like the ones his subjects grew up in, in gray-toned backgrounds, then paints over them in messy white acrylic. In many cases the subjects have returned not just to Cleveland but to their childhood houses. It is an unsettled homecoming, resignation etched on young faces."