Unexpected Finds in Unexpected Places

At 3 Galleries, Deceptively Perceptive Shows

Shows in the McLean Project for the Arts' Atrium Gallery can sometimes feel like an afterthought -- or maybe "appetizer" is a better word. Little more than a hallway that leads to the MPA's main exhibition space, the place has more odd angles than a carnival fun house.

Which is why Washington painter Lynn Putney's work looks so good here (in fact, I've never seen a show that works better). Not only do her small, cartoonish paintings whet your appetite for the mix of whimsy and the organic taking center stage in the Emerson Gallery (a medley of ceramic sculpture by Leigh Taylor Mickelson, Judit Varga and Lars Westby), but they seem made for the unpredictable, pinball nature of the room in which they're hung.

Drawn with a spontaneity recalling the work of Saul Steinberg, Putney's colorful abstractions are arranged in seemingly random clusters, one high, one low. They bounce like musical notes, drawing the eye from one loopy -- sometimes literally loopy -- image to another.

As with jazz, the work's strength lies in its freedom of form, tempered with discipline. Putney's pictures may bubble up from the artist's subconscious, but they're far from self-indulgent. Riding herd over their wild, untrammeled energy is someone who has the eye of a graphic designer.

Passing Fancies (Everyone's a Stranger Here): Paintings by Lynn Putney and Transform, Transport, Transpose: Works by Leigh Taylor Mickelson, Judit Varga and Lars Westby Both through Jan. 12 at the McLean Project for the Arts, 1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean. 703-790-1953.http://www.mpaart.org. Open Tuesday-Friday from 10 to 4; Saturdays from 1 to 5; closed Christmas and New Year's Day. Free.

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The new Carroll Square Gallery might hold some surprises for those expecting toothless, content-free art from a space just off the lobby of a downtown office building. Case in point: "You Catch More Flies With Honey . . . ," a group show curated by Hemphill Fine Arts, the blue-chip D.C. gallery that has agreed to run the exhibition program for the building.

Among the deceptively sweet show's standouts is the work of Baltimore's Denise Tassin. Created from itsy-bitsy furniture, plastic human figures and dollhouse-size food items the artist collects, Tassin's entire contribution to "Flies" could probably fit in a shoe box. One tiny tableau, titled "Enid Marie Tassin, A Day Out," probably wouldn't fill a thimble. In it, a miniature nurse pushes a wheelchair holding an elderly woman. Next to her stands a little girl; several other dollhouse-size children frolic nearby.

As the show's title implies, the work has a superficial sweetness, even a preciousness. But look closer (you'll need to anyway at this almost microscopic scale). Beneath the sugariness of Tassin's toy-based sculptures hides sardonic commentary. About what? Only our own mortality, not to mention the cosmic insignificance of our place in the universe.

You Catch More Flies With Honey. . .Through Feb. 22 at Carroll Square Gallery, 975 F St. NW (Metro: Gallery Place-Chinatown). 202-234-5601.http://www.carrollsquare.com/gallery.htm. Open Monday-Friday from 8 to 6; closed Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Free.

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The art of Albert Schweitzer -- no, not that Albert Schweitzer; this one is a contemporary artist from Baltimore -- seems a little out of place at Gallery Neptune, amid the shops and restaurants of downtown Bethesda's Woodmont Triangle. With its funky, folk-art vibe, it'd be far more at home at, say, Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum than in this enclave of high-end home furnishings.

Not that Neptune's proprietor, Elyse Harrison, harbors any illusions about what people like to buy in this upscale Montgomery County community. When she showed the work of painter John Aquilino recently, his show of coolly dispassionate cityscapes sold out, the first time that has happened at the gallery. As for sales of Schweitzer's subtly gay-themed paintings and papier-m¿ch¿ sculpture -- eh, not so much.

The colorful, childlike work itself, which embodies the outsider aesthetic Harrison so often champions, is charming, if incongruous. Yet there's more to it than meets the eye. Schweitzer, who likes to refer to his figurative work as "situations," is drawn to complex psychological states. His people burst with inner demons. Faces emerge, like popped blisters, from his characters' bodies, in a literal representation of our multiple personalities. Who among us, Schweitzer seems to ask, presents only one face to the world?

Albert Schweitzer: Inside, Looking InThrough Dec. 29 at Gallery Neptune, 4901 Cordell Ave., Bethesda (Metro: Bethesda). 301-718-0809.http://www.galleryneptune.com. Open Wednesday-Saturday from noon to 7; closed this Wednesday. Free.