In a New York Times story titled “Bringing Some of the Rust Belt to Sag Harbor,” Erik Piepenburg writes of Cleveland artist Frank Oriti, whose work currently is on display at the Richard J. Demato Fine Arts Gallery in Sag Harbor, NY, in an exhibit titled "Homeland."

“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 also to their childhood houses. It is an unsettled homecoming, resignation etched on young faces.”

The rest of the piece is written in a Q&A format, in which Oriti goes into greater detail about his work, inspiration, and the financial differences between creating art in Brooklyn versus Cleveland.

Describing what it's like to work as a painter in Cleveland, the artist responds:

"I have a lot of studio to move around in. A friend told me the average rent for a Brooklyn art studio is like $1,200 a month for 500 square feet. I share 1,400 square feet and we each pay $400 a month. I couldn’t even come up with how much that would cost in Brooklyn."

Enjoy the full story here.