In a coastal town best known for its stately mansions and regatta culture, artist Cy Gavin has reimagined the seascape as something far more cosmic. For Cy Gavin: Seven Paintings, now on view at IYRS Restoration Hall as part of Art&Newport, Gavin transformed towering yacht sails into celestial works that reflect themes of navigation, identity, and deep space. Suspended from the rafters of a former shipyard, the pieces blur the lines between sail, screen, and sky, inviting viewers to look up, drift inward, and consider the spiritual poetry of open water.
Installed in the cavernous 1831 stone building of the IYRS School of Technology & Trades, a site steeped in the craftsmanship of marine restoration, Gavin’s paintings respond directly to their surroundings. The works are rendered on actual boat sails and feature over 50,000 hand-painted stars, far surpassing the 4,500 typically visible to the naked eye. Drawing from navigational charts, ancestral memory, and the legacy of global maritime trade, Gavin merges the maritime painting tradition with his signature gestural style. One piece, his largest to date, spans 46 feet high and 26 feet wide. The visual impact is heightened by translucent materials and an innovative use of light, echoing the cyanotypes of boat schematics Gavin encountered in the IYRS library.
Organized by Dodie Kazanjian, founder of Art&Newport, the exhibition is a meditation on history, movement, and the ocean as both metaphor and material. Gavin, whose work often addresses colonialism, ecology, and site-specific memory, brings these themes into a deeply resonant space, anchoring Newport’s seafaring past to a broader, almost interstellar inquiry. Seven Paintings is on view through August 29 and is free and open to the public, part of Art&Newport’s mission to bring museum-quality contemporary art to the city’s most unexpected corners.
