* The Marsha Mateyka Gallery invited three abstract artists to show together this month. While the trio's styles vary so widely that the show never manages to create a whole, it doesn't matter: Each pulls her own weight. Kathleen Kucka's paintings are about white acrylic paint -- about how the stuff acts when it's poured over top of an aluminum panel and then mushed around and sanded. The result: gorgeous paintings that look deep as holograms, even though they're just millimeters thick. Cheonae Kim turns out little wood panels -- tiny things an inch thick and five or so inches across painted in assertive primary colors. Their squares, rectangles and stripes evoke Piet Mondrian or Gene Davis working in the size of a Milk Duds box. Despite their diminutive stature, each one stakes a significant claim to the wall. Sheila Rotner weaves canvas strips (cut from old paintings she wasn't so happy with) between grids of reinforcing rods, and then washes them in acrylic, sand and mica. At four feet square, her biggest piece could be a cross between a tapestry and a gritty brick wall.
"Abstraction: An Invitational Exhibition" at Marsha Mateyka Gallery, 2012 R St. NW, Wednesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., 202-328-0088, to March 30.