By Kevin Coughlin
You could say that Adel Gorgy sees the world through rose-colored glasses.
Actually, they are red-and-green cellophane goggles–the kind you used to get at Saturday matinees of Vincent Price movies, if you go back that far.
“Imagine a world where all the rules break down,” where “what you see isn’t always what you get,” Gorgy said at Thursday’s opening of the Winter 2017 Invitational Exhibition in Morristown.
Five years ago, the Long Island artist dazzled with his wall-sized, photo-inspired prints, a process he called “Differential Color Absorption.”
This time, he’s exploring the possibilities of 3D.
Gorgy has attempted to photographically replicate works by the masters, paying attention to three things: Perspective, tonality and light falloff. It’s an effort to put the viewer “inside” the painting.
“I wanted to see what Vermeer saw, to see what Rembrandt really saw,” as they painted their masterpieces, he said. Gorgy also has a series of 3D mandalas, which take spectators on a spatial journey with or without the cardboard glasses.
Slideshow photos by Kevin Coughlin
Curated by Morris Arts, the show runs through March 16, 2017, at the Atrium Gallery, where it fills four floors of the Morris County Administration & Records Building on Court Street.
Featured artists include Todd L.W. Doney, Marsha Solomon, Andrea Epstein, Pat Brentano, Elizabeth Gregory Gruen, Charles Newman, and a Highlands Juried Art Exhibit organized by Dwight Hiscano.
“I feel like it was the only choice,” said Berkeley Heights artist Andrea Epstein, explaining why she paints.
“Art is the greatest thing to ever happen to me,” Marsha Solomon said. “It gives me a great deal of happiness and fulfillment, and makes me see the world in a new way, a special way.”
Solomon shares a studio with Gorgy on the South Shore of Long Island. The place was battered by Hurricane Sandy and they lost artworks worth a small fortune.
But Gorgy, a nephrologist, is not easily fazed. Years ago he left his native Egypt to escape persecution as a Coptic Christian.
“Life happens,” Gorgy said with a shrug. “You have to let go.”
