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With a goal of bringing food, wine, and art together, The Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts features a different local artist every few weeks during the Art of Wine series. The Center’s in-house caterer, Arts Kitchen, prepares a drink and food menu inspired by the artwork, and the artist talks about their work and inspiration.

On March 7, the fourth event in the series featured artist Doug Clarke, who specializes in plein air painting — the practice of painting outdoors, and painting what you see. As an avid fan of cinema, Clarke said he wants his paintings to feel like a still from a film.

This was one of the more popular in the series, with about 32 out of 40 tickets sold, said Thomas Yannuzzi, CEO and executive director of the Center.

While the entire exhibit is on display in Arts Kitchen, the artist picks four paintings to highlight. Kathy Lethig, special events manager at the Center, and Ed Beardsley, owner of Arts Kitchen and Mod Olive, collaborate to create a food and drink menu inspired by the selected paintings.

Lethig said Clarke’s exhibit was different from previous Art of Wine events because it incorporated wine cocktails for the first time. Inspired by the moody, evening feel of Clarke’s selected pieces, Lethig said wine cocktails felt more “edgy” than wine by itself.

The four paintings highlighted during the dinner were “Gossip at the bar,” “Downtown Stroll,” “Estas Perdido?” and “Looking for a Midnight Ride.” All of them, with the exception of “Downtown Stroll” depict scenes at night involving alcohol and other vices, fitting into the theme of “Nostalgic Nights.”

While it doesn’t match the theme, “Downtown Stroll” was highlighted because it features Sushi Aka, a known restaurant in downtown Suffolk.

“I think just the way he captures the nighttime life, just the different colors and the different energy that you see in the nighttime, is just really beautiful,” Nana Ferdnance, the Center’s visual arts manager, said.

The first course of the night, inspired by “Gossip at the Bar,” was classic bar appetizers and small plates paired with a left bank martini — a classic martini made with gin, elderflower liqueur, white wine and dry vermouth. 

“We are kind of doing that to embody what’s happening in the painting itself, people gathering at the bar, having the Martini, enjoying the night,” Lethig said.

The second course, inspired by “Downtown Stroll,” was a spicy California sushi roll and a sake white wine spritz paying homage to Sushi Aka, the subject of the painting.

The third course was a chili-rubbed skirt steak with poblano butter and fingerling potatoes. It was paired with a devil’s margarita—called diablo el ahumado on the menu to stay on theme with its painting, “Estas Perdido?” — a classic silver margarita topped with a red wine floater. 

“Looking for a Midnight Ride” inspired the final dish, a dark chocolate brownie cherry jubilee and a port of temptation boozy milkshake. 

“The thought on that is, you know, people say that nothing good comes after midnight, but it’s that one last drink, that one last bite,” Lethig said.

Lethig said her favorite course of the night was the chili and poblano steak with the devil’s margarita. With “Estas Perdido?,” or “are you lost,” she said they were inspired to do something hot and spicy to mimic what the painting is portraying.

Depicting an evening scene of a girl leaning against a classic car with a cigarette and a bottle in her hand, with a motel sign and a liquor store behind her, Clarke said he was painting a scene of temptation.

He pointed out the license plate on the car is 666, the motel behind her is called La Muerte Hotel — death hotel — and the billboard in the background says “lust” in Spanish. 

Clarke said he wanted to convey a message about how something may look inviting on the surface, but if you look harder, there are warning signs.

With clear Spanish influence in his paintings, Clarke said he often paints scenes from California, and it’s “impossible” not to acknowledge and experience the Latino culture there.

With “Looking for a Midnight Ride,” a woman stands alone on a street corner with a liquor store illuminated behind her. Clarke said he wanted to evoke the feeling of loneliness in a city that never sleeps.

In general, Clarke said he likes to tell stories with his art, but in ways that aren’t laid out for the viewer.

“I want the viewer to make their own assumptions,” he said. “I don’t like paintings that spell everything out. I’m not really a fan of super realism.”

While the Art of Wine series focuses on local artists right now, Yannuzzi said he hopes to be able to feature international artists as well.

“If we can find artists from around the world that can come and represent things from their areas that are similar to the same things that we experience, I think that would just be really cool,” he said.