Last weekend, The Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack co-hosted a private dinner and viewing of new paintings by Swedish artist Jim Thorell with Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery. The event was organized by Alex Rotter, Sotheby’s Co-Head of Contemporary Art Worldwide, in conjunction with the S|2 Gallery’s current solo exhibition of the artist in New York City. The evening introduced a private group of art collectors to a selection of Thorell’s lush, abstract canvases over an intimate meal prepared by chef Brian Collesano of Plated Personal Chef Services.

Madoo’s gardens provided a natural setting for Thorell’s colorful paintings of wild foliage and psychedelic blooms. Thorell’s work is made in a process akin to color field painting however after the canvas fibers absorb the paint, he begins working the colorfully stained backside of canvas, making the reverse the front of the finished work. In addition to S|2’s curated exhibitions of artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jean Dubuffet in New York and London, they are known for doing pop-up exhibitions everywhere from Hong Kong to Los Angeles to Palm Beach; this one night exhibition being the gallery’s first in the Hamptons.

**The Jim Thorell: 7 Paintings exhibition continues at S|2 New York at 1334 York Ave until August 5th.

Sotheby’s Anna McKnight and HC&G editor in chief, Kendell Cronstrom