Encore! Encore!

Seagrapes on Blue #3

To paraphrase Gertrude Stein—a seagrape is a seagrape is a seagrape. But for Charles H. Reinike III, the seagrape is a form that continuously finds its way back onto the canvas. Common along southeastern coastlines, these plants are staples of the everyday landscape—they populate dunes, yards, and coastal edges—yet they are often passed without a second glance.

What draws Reinike to the subject are the large, leathery leaves, whose surfaces record the life of the plant. Insects leave delicate trails and small patterns—tiny marks that become integral to each leaf’s identity. Cascading fruit and thick, winding branches add a sculptural layer of design, creating an exotic interplay of color and form. Ultimately, the paintings hover between the highly representational and the beautifully abstract; the subject itself serves as a vehicle for orchestrating the color, form, and rhythm that define the essence of the artwork.

Again and Again

Reinike’s recurring focus on the seagrape echoes a rich tradition in art history. Claude Monet painted his water lilies again and again, not out of habit, but because each canvas offered a fresh opportunity to explore color, atmosphere, and perception. In a similar spirit, Reinike revisits the more prosaic seagrape to shift scale, proportion, and weight of the color field, revealing a new perspective with every iteration. He is effectively studying the difference within sameness.

Throughout this series, Reinike alters the canvas shape, shifts the relationship between figure and ground, and varies the intensity of the background—yet the leaf remains his constant anchor. The subject serves as a framework for exploring color harmony, spatial tension, and the expressive texture of natural surfaces. Returning to the seagrape is never an exercise in repetition; it is an act of reinvention.

For collectors, pieces like Seagrapes on Blue #3 evoke the feeling of a coastal landscape without describing it literally. The painting maintains the bold graphic design of contemporary abstraction while remaining deeply rooted in the natural world. It invites viewers to pause and reconsider the familiar, demonstrating how a commonplace subject can become an enduring source of visual inspiration.

Variations on A Theme

The first two seagrapes on blue paintings are in private collections. With Seagrapes on Blue #3, Reinike returns to the subject once more. What makes this return compelling is not simply the subject itself, but the way each painting becomes a fresh exploration of proportion, balance, and color.

Seagrapes on Blue #1
Oil on canvas 48" × 48"

Seagrapes on Blue #2
Oil on canvas 42" × 48"

Seagrapes on Blue #3
Oil on canvas 36" × 48"

In the early paintings, the leaves dominated the canvas—large and assertive, filling the space with their rounded forms. In the newest work, the leaves are smaller and surrounded by a deeper, more saturated blue. The increased negative space shifts the emphasis of the painting: the leaves feel suspended, almost buoyant, and the darker blue heightens their green luminosity.

Across the three works, Reinike adjusts the shape and scale of the canvas, the relationship between figure and ground, and the intensity of the blue field, yet the seagrape remains the anchor. The plant becomes the framework through which he explores color harmony, spatial tension, and the structure of an artwork itself.