New Art Gallery Opens Friday

The Hersh Fine Art gallery on Glen Street will host a reception Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. for its inaugural exhibit, "Fiction/Nonfiction," which will run through June 3, according to the gallery.

The gallery's director, Flora Armetta, said she aims to attract work that is stylistically diverse and powerful in meaning.

“I am looking not so much for artists who subscribe to a particular school or style of work as I am for a wide variety of artwork that is meaningful,” she said. “The work that I find beautiful is not only visually compelling but also communicates strong and exciting ideas.”

The gallery is located across from City Hall in a storefront that had been unoccupied, and is next door to the (LIAFA).

Glen Cove resident Debbie Kossoff is a student at the academy.

“Since the gallery is located next to LIAFA, it not only offers a new opportunity for students to view meaningful art while also studying and making art themselves, but also creates a small downtown art district of sorts," said Kossoff.

The gallery's first exhibit is a collection of paintings by a group of alumni from Manhattan's New York Academy of Art.

Steve Forster is one of the featured artists.

“The act of seeing an object and trying to describe it in paint seems simple enough," Forster explained. "But trying to translate its light, proportion of form, tone, its color and shape, and surrounding atmosphere onto canvas may be more complicated. Add to this a personal aesthetic and philosophical quest, which naturally develop over time for each painter, and the end result is a group of paintings that bridge two realities—the conceptual and the perceptual.”

Armetta said she expects a "large and varied" crowd at Friday's reception, to which all are welcome.