MFAF-PG

Folsom's evocatively rendered female figures strut, tease, seduce, play and laugh. We are made sympathetic witness to a social class thoroughly enjoying its daily routine. A more recent painting, "Dance Macabre", taking a turn toward the ominous, portrays the figures of a skeleton leading a beautiful nymph, while observed in secret by a cigarette-smoking male urchin.

Lewton's subtle colors and painterly strokes transform architectural fragments, bits of 19th century sculpture, and Victoria Secret catalog illustrations to create seductive, pictorial compositions. Each painting is uniquely compelling. The most transfixing, "Machines of Desire", depicts from right to left, a loosely rendered image of the MCI building site, with a construction worker gazing, perhaps lustfully or longingly, at a powerfully sensual vision of a sculpted woman.

Mussoff applies colored pencil to paper with the boldness of brush. Multiple colors are worked and re-worked to mold a convincing form and compelling vision. Large drawings of beautiful young women, defined by their intriguing eyes and intense expressions, are depicted in unusually imaginative and playful compositions. In "Hands", a woman's coat is covered suggestively with drawings of hands... tracings of her own hand. In "Lovebirds", parakeets held in the hand of one subject, mirror the two women staring at the viewer, each with a contradicting emotion on her face.

Shannon provokes and surprises. A master at drawing the figure, he is driven to experiment and shock. Nudes are depicted in the context of myth. Primary colors highlight sexuality. Form is fractured. A new series of small works is especially appealing. Beautifully executed figures of women are sculpted with color, and skillfully applied layers of paint. The form is so evocative and the composition so timeless, as to invoke the mythological paintings throughout history; and yet strangely, they are paintings for today.

Putney's charcoal drawings also find inspiration in myth. Swift, bold strokes are used to convey the images born in her mind. Her compositions are sure, and instantly appealing. Neptune and the sea are settings for portraying the nude. Recent charcoal and conte crayon drawings are more abstracted but oddly sensual. Swaying tree trunks, spiders, and other amorphous shapes speak of sex as much as the traditional nude. This is a younger artist with raw talent, and originality; she's worth watching.