From OBEY to SAMO: One Art Space Tribeca Presents Street Art Icons Curated by MaryAnn Giella McCulloh
NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, July 16, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — One Art Space was a featured exhibit at the 2026 Hamptons Fine Art Fair, with a curated presentation led by internationally recognized artist Shepard Fairey, whose art recently graced the cover of Time Magazine, and featuring works by Al Diaz and Chuck Connelly at the Southampton Fairgrounds. The fair, one of the major art events in the Hamptons summer calendar, brought together galleries, collectors and artists for four days of modern and contemporary art in Southampton – and resulted in the sales of nearly all of the works on display at the Gallery’s booth and sold out of all of the Shepard Fairey.
Curated by One Art Space’s MaryAnn Giella McCulloh, the presentation framed three artists through the powerful language of street art and urban visual culture: Fairey as the future-facing force, Diaz as the living present and Connelly as a vital bridge to the expressive past. Together, the works created a conversation about how art born from the street, the studio and the charged atmosphere of public life can move from provocation to permanence.
Fairey, best known for the OBEY campaign and the instantly recognizable Barack Obama “Hope” image, anchors the presentation with the graphic impact, cultural immediacy and political resonance that have made him one of the defining visual voices of his generation, while Diaz brings the presentation firmly into the present through his legacy as the pioneering New York street artist and co-creator of the influential SAMO© project with Jean-Michel Basquiat, and his current text-driven works that transform New York City “Wet Paint” signs into socially reflective anagrams and installations. Connelly completes the presentation by representing the expressive and unruly past that helped shape the visual energy from which later street and post-street movements emerged, with his Neo-Expressionist sensibility, restless gesture, raw feeling and psychological charge offering a compelling counterpoint to Fairey’s graphic precision and Diaz’s verbal immediacy. Together, the three artists create a dialogue across generations, demonstrating how rebellion in art can move from walls and public language to brushwork, memory and the enduring refusal to conform.
“One Art Space continues to support my work by having a showcase of pieces available and on view at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair,” said Artist Shepard Fairey. “I aim to draw people in with the beauty of an image and leave them with a deeper message, and all of the works presented are a great example of that philosophy.”
“One Art Space has always believed in showing artists whose work carries a point of view,” said MaryAnn Giella McCulloh, curator. “For Hamptons Fine Art Fair, we wanted to bring together three artists who each changed the conversation in a different way. Shepard Fairey brings a global visual language; Al Diaz brings the living DNA of New York street culture and Chuck Connelly brings the raw power of painting as resistance. Together, they tell a story about where street art came from, where it stands now and where it is going.”
Notable attendees at the opening night VIP reception included: MaryAnn Giella McCulloh, Mei Fung, Carmen D’Alessio, Donna Rubin, Jean Shafiroff, Rebecca Seawright, Ashley Medici, Rick Friedman, and Cindy Lou Wakefield.
About One Art Space:
One Art Space opened in May 2011 in the heart of Tribeca and has been a distinctive venue for both museum-caliber and emerging artists for 15 years led by co-owners and women gallerists MaryAnn Giella McCulloh and Mei Fung, who combine business expertise with art and curatorial skills. Located at 23 Warren Street in New York City, the gallery occupies a versatile ground-level space with a glass façade, offering natural light and an inviting view from the street. This unique and versatile space for exhibitions provides a perfect backdrop for both the artwork and artist to shine.
MaryAnn’s background in creativity stems from her father, Joe Giella, a renowned Batman illustrator hired by Stan Lee, whose artwork featured on two USPS stamps issued in 2006 as part of the DC Comics Superheroes release (The Green Lantern and The Flash). The gallery’s programming mixes storied figures in New York’s art scene, most recently Al Diaz, world-famous street artists like Shepard Fairey, abstract contemporary painters like Andrew Salgado, featuring a solo exhibition of works by Purvis Young while building on more than a decade of exhibitions dedicated to supporting women artists. Celebrity attendees of previous exhibitions have included Alec Baldwin, Spike Lee, and Ice-T.
One Art Space’s mission is to create a place where the giants of art history and the visionaries of art’s future come together in One Art Space.
For more information, please visit: www.oneartspace.com
IG: @oneartspace | FB: OneArtSpaceNYC | X/T: @oneartspace
About Shepard Fairey:
A defining force in contemporary street art, Shepard Fairey first gained international recognition with his 1989 “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign, which evolved into the iconic OBEY visual movement. His work merges graphic design, propaganda imagery, political critique and popular culture, most famously through his Barack Obama “Hope” poster. Fairey’s art demonstrates how a single image can move from the street to the museum wall while still challenging authority and influence.
For more information about the artist, please visit: www.obeygiant.com
About Al Diaz:
A fixture of the downtown art scene, Al Diaz began writing graffiti at age 12 and rose to prominence through SAMO©, the cryptic street-poetry collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat. His work has evolved into a multi-layered examination of power, consumerism, and cultural erosion, echoing the fall and rise of urban empires. Diaz’s art remains a powerful reminder that language and rebellion can endure even as paint on a wall.
For more information about the artist, please visit: www.al-diaz.com
About Chuck Connelly:
A raw and uncompromising voice in American painting, Chuck Connelly emerged from the New York art world of the 1980s with an expressive style that fused figuration, abstraction and psychological intensity. His paintings turn memory, conflict and restless observation into charged visual narratives. Connelly’s work illustrates that art can live not only on public walls, but also in the brushstroke and the refusal to be contained.
For more information about the artist, please visit: www.chuckconnelly.org
ABOUT Hamptons Fine Art Fair:
Hamptons Fine Art Fair, is staged in a 70,000-square-foot pavilion complex on 17 acres at the Southampton Fairgrounds. Led by Rick Friedman, Executive Director, the fair is positioned as more than a commercial art show, and is a major summer destination for collectors, galleries, artists and cultural tastemakers.
For more information, please visit: www.hamptonsfineartfair.com
Norah Lawlor
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