Viewers Look, Wait, and Look Again at New Dorsky Gallery Exhibition

Modern day Long Island City is a whirlwind of construction, traffic, and well-dressed professionals hurrying to the subway. However, a local art space is about to change the pace. An Aesthetics of Slowness opens this Sunday at Dorsky Gallery. The exhibition features paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures that contemplate the uncertainty of physical experiences and perceptions, inviting viewers to look, wait, and look again. Many works are not clearly legible at first glance; they emerge only as the viewer moves from side to side, checking various angles. For example, Ashley Billingsley’s pencil drawing Fire in Woods I-IV, 2013, (above) reflects on anxious villagers awaiting invasion by hostile forces in a scene from Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film, Seven Samurai. Another exhibitor, Brian Wills, uses thread to destabilize the perception of foreground and background in his portraits.

Details: An Aesthetics of Slowness, Dorsky Gallery, 11-03 45th Avenue, Long Island City, opening reception is January 18th, 2 pm to 5 pm, free, show runs until March 29, www.dorsky.org.

Photo: Dorsky Gallery