Gallery owner Jeffrey Leder stands next to Wilfred Chiesa’s works The Deeps No. 12 (l.) and The Deeps No. 13 (r.). The Jeffrey Leder Gallery, a new art gallery in Long Island City, held its inaugural exhibit on October 24. The exhibit featured five artists: Wilfredo Chiesa, Leigh Wen, Vincent Inconiglios, Donna Levinstone and Charles Marburg, each of whom will be hosting an individual exhibit at the gallery in the near future.

Jeffrey Leder has lived in Long Island City for 10 years, working in a studio while managing his own marketing company, Jeffrey Leder Inc. He decided to combine his skills in marketing and his passion for the arts by opening the gallery.

“I sensed that Long Island City was ready for this,” he said. “For me, art needs to have a sense of mystery. It has to engage you. These artists do that.”

Inconiglios, Levinstone and Marburg, who were chosen from over 800 applicants, were present at the opening. Their exhibits ranged from oils and pastels to collages made of newspaper clippings and wallpaper, and represented styles ranging from abstract to realism. Each of the five has a drastically different style from the next, offering diversity to the gallery exhibit.

Artist Charles Marburg with his two untitled works. Photos Cristina Guarino The first individual exhibit will run from December 5 through January 9, and will feature works by Levinstone. Some pieces will consist of landscape scenes in color and black and white, created with pastels on archival paper. The pieces exhibited at the opening were depictions of horizons over bodies of water that experiment with tones and lighting, especially in the sky.

“While I was in Florida, I became obsessed with the moon,” Levinstone said. “These are an offshoot of photo realism. I just channel what I see. Some people have told me they see angels, hands and other images in my work that I never noticed.”

Artist Vincent Inconiglios and his works Ilease (“Gansevoort Girls” series, l.) and The Group (“Wallpaper” series, r.). Levinstone also has a series inspired by the events of 9/11 that changed her approach to her work. She attributes the spirituality and emotionality of her work to this series.

Marburg, an abstract artist, focuses mostly on shapes and colors in his work. He works on up to six pieces at a time, causing them to overflow into one another and develop trends that link one work to the other. The works are composed of oil on wood panels.

“I play with several compositional elements at the same time,” he said. “It allows me to jump-start into the next abstract, instead of staring at a blank canvas and wondering what to paint next.”

Donna Levinstone with her works Beyond Reach (l.) and Eternal Waters (r.). Inconiglios’ work encompasses a wide range of forms such as painting and collages. At the gallery opening, he exhibited his “Gansevoort Girls” and “Wallpaper” collage series, which are woman’s portraits composed of magazine cutouts, wallpaper and paint. His work is mostly influenced by his Manhattan neighborhood known as the Meat Packing District and the cultural changes that have occurred over the many years he has lived there.

“I liked working on the ‘Gansevoort Girls’ series because it let me play around,” he said. He also pointed out that, in the “Wallpaper” series, the wallpaper occasionally becomes a part of the portraits, such as a swirl in one pattern becoming a woman’s eye.

Although the next two artists were unavailable, their works were able to speak for them. Wen’s paintings, canvases of white and blue ripples and waves that remind the viewer of the ocean, express her love for water and nature. Chiesa, also a painter, focuses on spirituality and emotion by intertwining simplicity and complexity in his series “The Deeps”, which are composed of sharply contrasting bright and dark shades that manage to blend into one another.

The Jeffrey Leder Gallery, 11-05 44th Rd., is located on the third floor of what was once a factory. It encompasses 3,000 square feet of space designed to avoid clutter and draw attention directly to the pieces on exhibit. In the future, it will exhibit individual shows of both American and international artists.