When Glen Head resident David Wiseltier was a child, he constructed roads and tunnels from blankets. His interest in using fabric in art grew from there. As a creative director in advertising, he used fabrics for photography backgrounds, drapes and fashion. Alongside his advertising career, he began making artwork out of fabrics, organic materials and found objects. A collection of Wiseltier’s work is on display in the East Hills Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center’s artSPACE.
The exhibit includes works made largely from fabrics creating a sense of movement. Many works were left untitled. Wiseltier said he chose not to title pieces in order to allow viewers to “finish the thought” and interpret them in their own way.
“What I wanted to do,” Wiseltier said, “was to create work that really left a lot up to the imagination of the viewer.”
Wiseltier described himself as an advocate for ecology and said that the environment has always been an important topic for him. He also explained that aside from getting people to use their imagination, one overall message of the exhibit is the conservation of Earth’s oceans.
While his artwork related to the ocean is not literal, it is representative of ongoing threats to the environment, Wiseltier said. Some pieces incorporate nonbiodegradable objects to represent pollution in the planet’s oceans.
“I love being outdoors, except I don’t like camping,” Wiseltier joked. “But I do like being outdoors, and I think it’s really important, because it’s a very serious problem, and if it keeps getting ignored, at some point my children or their children are going to be faced with a world that that’s not very habitable.”
Jaime Teich, associate executive director of marketing and communications and curator of Sid Jacobson JCC artSPACE, said that it is important for the organization to showcase local artists. Wiseltier is also a member of the JCC.
An opening reception was held on May 7. Teich said that the exhibit was put on display now because it relates to environment centered holidays and that it is unlike anything artSPACE has showcased before.
“He somehow creates this movement that is really interesting to the eye,” Teich said. “I love the way that in certain pieces of his he utilizes these organic matter so that he’s really bringing pieces of the Earth into what it is that he has created.”
Teich also said that she enjoys listening to conversations between observers as they view Wiseltier’s work, trading interpretations. She added that this fits with the goal of artSPACE, to bring people together.
Wiseltier echoed this desire to build community.
“In today’s environment,” he said, “it’s nice to give people an opportunity to just let go of what’s going on and just lose themselves in their imagination.”
The exhibit titled “The Art of Imagination” is on display through the end of May.
