If the tantalizing images in Leslie Hewitt's photography-based work have specific back stories, she's not telling. The juxtaposition of an African-American man posing in a park against Walter Cronkite broadcasting the news, for example, could be read in any number of ways as could a picture of generic neighborhood sprawl that gives way to an out-of-focus snapshot of family members watching television.

Artist Leslie Hewitt gives very specific items unspecific contexts, enticing viewers to question assumptions.

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In "Riffs on Real Time (2008)" -- which runs through Dec. 7 at Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College -- the free-form associative power of such images is the point, says Hewitt, where very specific items are given unspecific contexts, and the historical moment confronts head-on the subjective experience.

"I'm interested in finding a balance between those things," says Hewitt, 33, a New York-based artist-in-residence at Harvard University and a 2008 Whitney Biennial participant. "How we read images are sometimes with assumptions," she adds, noting that her art is concerned with "creating a space where that's acknowledged. ... How do I assign meaning to a photograph, especially when there is not a context to go along with it?"

Conceptual in the best sense of the term, Hewitt's work doesn't invite so much as demand participation from the viewer. Here, the topical and personal, mundane and profound, engage in active dialog, exploring among other things the notion of how we as Americans cultivate a sense of historical memory, especially in today's random-image culture of the Internet.

Each panel is created through a layered process that treats photographic images less as "windows," as she puts it, than as objects: a personal snapshot placed in the foreground; a common item such as a textbook or diagram for the middle ground; and her wooden studio floor as the visual base. Once assembled, the construction is photographed one more time as a final composite image in which the finished product's trompe l'oeil-suggestiveness becomes an invitation to dig, so to speak, beneath the surface of things.

It "makes you want to stay for a little bit longer," says Clough-Hanson director Hamlett Dobbins of the exhibit's allure. "It takes a slower read, a more intimate view."

Hewitt, who was part of the 2007 group show "Taking Aim: Selections from the Elliot L. Perry Collection," landed a solo show at Rhodes through a combination of factors, says Dobbins: the gallery welcomed the opportunity to present a body of work in its complete form, i.e., all 10 pieces from this particular "Riffs" series; and the artist was not only available to lecture but to help set up the show. Mostly, Hewitt was picked because her art challenges viewers in ways that Dobbins can appreciate. "I like things that are more paired down," he says, "where people are able to find their own way in without having it over-explained."

One detail Hewitt will concede is that she often appropriates images from the late 1960s, a time when her activist parents were involved in the civil rights struggle.

"My contemporary reality is completely affected by what happened during a time I didn't necessarily participate in," she says. "So then, how do I have a connection to those images, or do I have a connection to those images? Those types of questions helped me develop this body of work."

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Leslie Hewitt, 'Riffs on Real Time (2008)'

On display through Dec. 7 at the Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College, 2000 N. Parkway. For more information, call 843-3442 or e-mail dobbinsh@rhodes.edu.

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