Long Island artists get to display their masterpieces 

In the spirit of the “blind audition” — a way of gauging talent popularized by the NBC singing competition “The Voice” — the Art League of Long Island has put out its own faceless casting call. But instead of pitch, runs and falsettos, it’s all about line, color and texture.

“Good art is good art,” says Tim Newton, whose keen eye is responsible for the broad-ranging work by area artists that feature in the 59th Long Island Artists Exhibition, which runs Jan. 12 through Feb. 10 at Art League of Long Island’s Jeanie Tengelsen Gallery in Dix Hills. “It’s not black or white, male or female, old or young.”

With more submissions than ever before — 721 paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures by some 228 artists — the biennial has become an even more selective showcase than its previous iterations. The makers of the works, notes gallery curator Susan Peragallo, “come from all walks of life, from DUMBO in Brooklyn to Montauk in Suffolk.”
 

The Art League and its flagship exhibition have come a long way since the league’s humble beginnings in 1954. “People were moving to new communities across Long Island, and those who were artists felt isolated,” Peragallo explains of the impetus for its founding. “It was initially called the Huntington Art League. Board meetings were held in someone’s kitchen, and workshops, critiques and classes took place in a barn.”

With its move some 15 years ago to its current state-of-the-art building in Dix Hills, boasting nine studios and a two-floor atrium-covered exhibition space, the league adopted its current name and expanded opportunities for local artists to create and show their work. The range of imagery produced — from photorealist still-lifes to dreamy, psychedelic abstractions — is largely reflected in the biennial exhibit.

“Indicative of the diversity of the Long Island region itself, there is something here for everyone in terms of both subject and style,” says Newton, who has served as a juror over the past 10 years for art exhibitions across the country and as board chairman of New York City’s venerable Salmagundi Art Club since 2011. He is also a collector and practicing fine-art photographer.

Not only has Newton based his selections for the biennial solely on merit (that is, without any knowledge of their respective authors), but he has done so looking decidedly beyond his own aesthetic preferences. The appeal of an architectonic lidded clay vessel by Candice Dorsey of Mount Sinai varies significantly from a colorful, hyperrealist oil painting of toy modes of transportation by North Babylon’s Anthony D’Avino.

There is no theme bonding the works, says Newton, but instead a high level of skill and a clear expression of intent. “It is a rare work of art that is a happy accident,” he says, noting how he tries to avoid one-hit wonders.

“It takes a lot of effort to get noticed. The idea is to help those who are gifted.”