Flushing art show makes smiles bloom

When you hear that there’s an art show called, “Back to the Garden” at Queens Crossing, the impressive mixed use building undergoing its final touches in downtown Flushing, you might expect a gallery of nice, relaxing landscape paintings. You’d be wrong.
Instead, the multimedia garden of visual delights reaches all the way to the doorways to grab you and draw you in, from Ming Fay’s intensely-colored mobiles named “Jungle Tango” which rise in the four-story atrium, to Eun Young Choi’s parade of bubble-like mirrored stickers, which lead the curious up the stairs, like the white rabbit leading Alice, to the wonderland in the Crossing Art Gallery.
“The title actually came from Joni Mitchell’s song ‘Woodstock,’” said assistant curator and Auburndale resident Patricia Kuo. “The vision here is of the garden - the wide variety - of human needs and how we approach them in daily life.”
Despite the differences in method displayed by the eight Asian-American artists, and the heavy philosophy attached to the title, there’s a sense of fun and sometimes wry humor in the works.
Choi’s works hanging in the gallery illuminate childhood images within mirrored spheres, so you really do see yourself in them.
Bayside (by way of Beijing) visual artist Yo-Yo Xiao’s pictures and video playfully stretch reality, by means of a suite of computer software and a mysterious reference to “Boolean movement.” His light heart comes from being named for a toy, he insists.
There are works with humor everywhere: the ancient-looking bronzes which immortalize eating utensils, burger and fries containers from McDonalds, rest not far from the exquisitely decorated porcelains with images of children playing, that you eventually realize are Coca-Cola bottles.
There is one more-or-less “regular” painting, by Chinese artist Zhang Hongtu, from Woodside, only it’s a riff on a Sung Dynasty painting, with Chinese mountains under a starry sky as seen by Vincent Van Gogh.
Hongtu loves to impress Chinese themes on Western forms, as displayed by his take on Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” with Chairman Mao as the entire cast.
It’s art in Flushing - it’s fine, it’s fun - and it’s free.
“Back to the Garden” is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., or by appointment, through Saturday, April 26. The Crossing Art gallery is in Queens Crossing, 136-20 38th Avenue (enter at 39th Avenue off Main Street) in Flushing. Call 718-359-4333 or visit www.crossingart.com for more information.