The current exhibition at Tibor de Nagy Gallery is one of alchemy – alchemy of materials, alchemy of history, and alchemy of spirits. Shari Mendelson transforms standard throw-away plastic bottles into hybrids between ancient Roman, Cypriot, Egyptian, Chinese, and Islamic relics, and modern-day sculptures of beauty and belief. She transforms centuries-old vessels of ritual and worship into contemporary questions about our own needs for spiritual grounding, bringing powers of the distant past into our modern world. The sculptures on display are gorgeous, with their glowing surfaces and semi-translucent patinas that look like tinted glass or ceramic, depicting what could be sacrificial animals, primordial gods or contemporary dreams and musings. Using hot glue and poured resins, Shari molds plastic bottles by twisting, pulling, stretching and who knows what else, and then adds a few sundry pieces of metal or wood for stands, legs and antlers, until the materials’ humble beginnings are all but irrelevant. Apparently, Shari spends hours in museums, falling in love with actual antiquities, drawing these treasures, metamorphosing them, and finally reshaping them into something that honors their historical significance while also becoming entirely her own. A visit to this exhibition, up through October 14, will take you to another world while, simultaneously giving your eyes quite a feast to feed on.