Queens Tribune

The “Through Kids’ Eyes” exhibition at Flushing Town Hall, which opens this week and runs through June 12, gives people of all ages an opportunity to feel, smell, see and listen to more than 50 art forms and meet those who created them, promising to open the senses to contemporary artwork created by 10 different artists.

Although adult artists created the exhibition, many of the works give children a hands-on approach to pieces that aren’t confined and subdued, and offer children the encouragement to interact with the art. Kids and adults can also spend time with the artists who created the works.
The exhibit “allows the adult viewer to see how children approach them and open up their eyes and their hearts,” said curator Cheryl McGinnis.

One piece, created by Catya Plate, allows a user to open doors that have noses on the outside. And on the inside, there are 1,000 hanging vials that can be opened so kids can test their sense of smell. There is also a list in front of the exhibit that identifies each smell and Plate has offered cards that users can fill out and leave in a box, hoping that they will express to the artist how the different smells made them feel.

Michael Kirk’s exhibits are charcoal drawings that he first sketched along the Hudson River. They feature trees and landscapes that were later reproduced onto much larger canvases in his studio. The reproductions are not complete replicas, rather work that Kirk said is, “trying to locate how this place lives in me and to find out where I sit amongst it.” Kirk added that the evolution took place in his mind and is depicted on the larger canvases that show the trees and landscapes at different angles.

There are also a number of small photographs taken by artist Tony Gonzales, when he was in Hawaii. He shot pictures of Banyan trees with a stereoscopic Kodak camera, which has two lenses and takes two separate negatives. The images, which appear separate, are meant to be viewed using three-dimensional glasses. When a viewer begins looking close to the photo and slowly moves away from it, the separate photos come together and form one image.

Gonzales said, “The trees are kind of unique, they are very large and have a lot of exposed roots, very organic and very figurative.” He added that glasses would be displayed for viewers to use, along with the camera that he used to shoot the trees.

Another exhibit takes a different approach to popular displayed sketch work drawn on plates. Susan Hamburger depicted images of industrial and dilapidated areas in Brooklyn mounted onto dinner plates, which at a quick glance resemble not so unordinary artwork because of the floral designs that surround the structures.

Hamburger said that people’s initial approach may be that her work appears ordinary, but when examined from a shorter distance, “is a little more stealth and more modern, where you have to take a closer look,” because industrial drawings usually do not appear as artwork to most people.

Flushing Town Hall is located at 137-35 Northern Blvd., and the free exhibit is open from noon to 5 p.m., seven days a week.