Aisha in Wonderland: Maïmouna Guerresi

For more than twenty years Italian-Senegalese artist Maïmouna Guerresi has created art that depicts strong women. For Guerresi's new exhibition, Aisha in Wonderland, she photographs women draped in the rich and vibrant fabrics worn by Muslim women and then sets those figures against backgrounds in shades of gray. Inspired by the changes that Lewis Carroll's Alice experiences as she travels through another world, particularly her expanding and shrinking form, Guerrisi manipulates her images so that our perception of their dimensions change. An impossibly tall woman hidden inside a crimson robe stands on a plank high above a mysteriously closed door; a diminutive figure wearing a patterned robe in hues of green and blue strides past a cluster of plastic jugs and containers, the minarets and domes of an Islamic city hugging the horizon. Aisha in Wonderland: Maïmouna Guerresi opens with a free reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, June 29, at Projects + Gallery (4733 McPherson Avenue; www.projects-gallery.com). The exhibit remains on display through July 28, and the gallery is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Admission is free.