Barnes and Martenson at Gross McCleaf

Victoria Barnes spices up her still life paintings by turning them into whimsical assemblages. Awaiting a Return, for instance, shows a figurine perched atop an overturned berry carton staring at a painting of a clipper ship under full sail. In Adoration, an angel figurine knees in rapt attention before a much larger statuette of a reclining dog.

You probably get the point. These paintings are clever, and sometimes they sting— in Polar Bear (one of the few pieces in the show that depict living, breathing "models"), a guy is too busy trying to frame the image of the bear in his phone to pay much attention to the actual beast. How many times has this happened to us in our gadget-happy age?

The artist profile on Barnes says that she paints these unconventional still lifes in a conscious attempt to lighten up this usually sober-sided genre of painting. I'd say that she’s succeeding. Douglas Martenson, by contrast, is strictly Old School. His Maine landscapes are gems of atmospheric landscape painting. His subject matter is limited to the point of imagistic penury: An old wooden house, its interior rooms, or a stretch of seacoast is all Martenson needs to work his magic.

His several studies of a small wooded island at low tide are magical, but it’s in the series of interior studies— tables, lamps, etc.— that Martenson’s craftsmanship really shines through. Martenson cares about his subjects, and through his art he makes you care about them too.