The Jeffrey Leder Gallery is pleased to announce two solo shows featuring Donna Levinstone and Demetrius Manouselis, on view at 2137 45th Road, Long Island City from April 15th until May 6th, 2012.

The parlor floor will host an exhibition of Donna Levinstone’s recent pastel drawings. Her dramatic configurations of sky, clouds and water capture the “timeless beauty of life” through the use of simple tools, as Austin R. Williams stated in a recent review of Donna’s artwork in Artist Daily. On the gallery’s top floor, the viewer is encouraged to interact with Demetrius Manouselis’ new abstract paintings that combine biomorphic and architectural forms in balanced compositions. Exploring structured collaborations and of line, form and color, Manouselis achieves a “dynamic equilibrium” like an “elegant, interlocked jigsaw puzzle” (Lilly Wei, Art in America)

On view are Donna Levinstone’s most recent pastels that bring to mind, within a contemporary aesthetic, the swirling skies of the British romantic landscape painter J. M. W. Turner. Levinstone works exclusively in pastel and achieves mesmerizing depictions of nature’s most wonderful settings with few tools. Using Diane Townsend pastels on white Stonehenge paper, the artist captures the weight and essence of nature’s different components through a process of additions and substractions. “As I layer my drawings with darkness and light, I explore the powerful forces of nature as well as its beauty. I examine the dualities of light and dark, calm and volatile and ethereal and permanence.” Levinstone went through different materials and sizes until she reached a vocabulary that ranges between impressionism and photorealism to express her fascination with sky and water. She invites the viewer to explore the duality of what is permanent in our world and what is ever-changing. Donna Levinstone is based in Long Island City. In 2011, she had a very successful one person exhibit at Jeffrey Leder Gallery. Her collectors include the Library of Congress, the Museum of the City of New York, CBS, General Electric, the US Department of State, AT&T, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Citigroup, Time Inc, the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Nabisco Brands Inc, Columbia House, The Disney Company, The Bristol Meyers Company, Pfizer, The New-York Historical Society and Touche Ross.

Demetrius Manouselis’ abstract compositions on panel and paper explore the relationship of color and form to engage the viewer through an intricate play of perspectives. Entangled and interspersing lines adjacent to circles transform the painterly ground into an intricate three dimensional space. Manouselis’ skillful drawings form the basis for a recent series covered with thick coats of paint. Particular fields are scraped off and reveal the underlying geometric structure, while others are covered with a semi-translucent layer. Scratched marks within the paint induce a sculptural dimension and give the eye and mind an intricate surface to explore. As the curator Dr. Robert Steven Bianchi stated: “Each flight into the works of Manouselis is an exhilarating visual experience transporting one from the realm of representational realism into the visual realm of curvilinear conjunctions.”

Demetrius Manouselis holds a BA in Design and a MA in Architecture from Pratt Institute. He has exhibited in various group shows at the Jeffrey Leder Gallery. Demetrius’ artwork is in numerous important private collections.