NEW YORK—As I’ve mentioned before in these columns, the surroundings in which artists present their work can be as important in shaking expectations as the nature of the work itself. The happiest coincidence occurs when the work is neither what you’d expect, nor where you’d expect it.

Case in point: I recently went looking for a gallery I’d never heard of before, The Next Gallery at 75 Varick Street, near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. 75 Varick turns out to be a smart office building, and even the security guy at the front desk had never heard of the gallery.

But after some checking, we found it up on the 12th floor. The “gallery” was actually not much more than a cleared space at the foot of a staircase in the middle of the Metropolitan College of New York.

MCNY specializes in continuing education for people with full-time jobs and offers classes with practical, hands-on requirements. As Dr. Faye Ran, assistant provost (and gallery director) explained to me, it turns out that this little gallery was created in 2001 as the result of the "constructive action" required of a class of Media Management MBA students.

The gallery is currently hosting an exhibition of hyperrealist paintings by Denis Peterson. This frankly unsettling show is called “Don’t Shed No Tears” and takes as its subject matter genocide, particularly the genocides in Rwanda, Darfur, Ethiopia, Haiti and Cambodia.

What makes it all the more unnerving is that this horrific subject matter is treated with a sophisticated, hyperrealist airbrush technique. Most of the paintings are either portraits or images of people in landscape; and most, which are relatively small by professional gallery standards, are very beautiful—and so exquisitely crafted that I initially took them for photographs.

The exhibition is accompanied by handouts on various aspects of genocide, but it is the mute pictures themselves, and occasionally their accompanying titles, that are most eloquent.

I was particularly moved by the piece called Cactus Flower (2006), 24 images of prisoner children, taken from their identity papers presumably, with the subtitle, “Comrade Duch, when ordered by Pol Pot to leave, elected to kill all remaining prisoners. He is in jail awaiting trial.” And there, in the 25th portrait, the only one in color, is the murderer himself.

I asked Peterson if the paintings were for sale. “The body of work was created for humanitarian purposes,” he told me, “and proceeds of certain works are going to victims and families. Two pieces are on reserve, and the remainder are priced between $4,500 and $13,000.”

But this isn’t just a good cause. Peterson’s work is serious, sophisticated and politically and morally engaged. Go and have a look. It’s easier to get to than Chelsea. Varick is only one block west of Sixth Avenue. Tell the guy on the front desk that you’re going up to the college, and when you get up to the 12th floor, the security guy will point out the gallery. Trust me; go.