[By Athena Waligore via Interior Design]

She was once blind, but when Heather Chontos recovered her sight, the then 15-year-old had gained a different perspective on life and art. Today, that vision is evident in her evocative abstract paintings in “Weightless,” at Voltz Clarke Contemporary gallery in New York until July 5. The 11 works in a variety of media are influenced by recent voyages. The blue tile she saw in Porto, Portugal, for instance, inspired the multicolor Certain Distance, an oil and acrylic on linen.