Dogwood Blossom Painting

Oil paintings offer surreal slice of South

There’s a touch of the surreal in Charles Keiger’s folksy oil paintings in Inside Out. On view through Oct. 15 at The Arts Company, Keiger’s small (generally 22 inches by 20 inches) works combine Southern Gothic images with magical realism.

Most of the paintings are on panel set within whitewashed frames onto which Keiger adds a doodle related to the theme. Another Keiger quirk is to record the dates he begins and finishes the painting at the bottom left and right of the piece, respectively.

His subjects seem plucked from Southern lit or eccentric family legends. In Potomac Sonata , for example, a man wearing a purple top coat and hat and gold vest plays a violin while standing in the river. A triangle of dogwood blossoms dominates the sky above him.

Flowers, clouds and trees are powerful elements for Keiger; in some of the works, the clouds hang low, practically to the ground, in others backdrops of clouds include peeling patches of exposed brick

In addition to Keiger’s works, The Arts Company is also showing a color-drenched photography series by Denise Stewart-Sanabria. Images of downtown vistas and scenes — among them a giant inflatable Ronald McDonald sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk — were taken early one Sunday morning with a plastic lomo camera. The photographs are mounted on chunky, black wall-mounted boxes the artist created.

Don Dudenbostel’s light, airy X-ray images of flowers, an alarm clock and other objects also are on view.

The Arts Company is at 215 Fifth Ave. N. and is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. There is no admission fee.

For information, call 254-2040 or visit www.

theartscompany.com .

Body Painting

Dogwood

Blossom, A Novel

On painting

What Painting Is