"A Drawing Show"

Giant geese erupting from a bathtub seem perfectly normal in Jeffrey Beebe’s untitled ink and watercolor,  though the surprised housewife they confront may disagree.  It’s just one of the works in “A Drawing Show,” a bizarre and enjoyable overview of 15 artists’ recent works on paper. Included here are East Coast luminaries such as James Siena and Jessica Stockholder, but its strongest pieces are by respected locals and emerging artists. Some of these artists seem to celebrate drawing as an end in itself. Frank Magnotta’s charcoal The Healer almost out-freaks Francis Bacon: Its virtuoso shading renders its alien subject as a seamless assemblage of bulbous forms. Amy Jean Porter’s Patas is part of her effort to document every species in the world, but it is also a beautifully colored illustration of a monkey, tropical flowers and an incongruous colonial house.

For others, drawing is the linchpin of larger projects. An installation by Libby VanderPloeg resembles a pile of ordinary plastic bags. But VanderPloeg made these mass-produced symbols of consumer society by hand, painstakingly re-creating both generic “Thank yous” and recognizable logos in colored pencil on vellum. As the cutout clip art–like characters in Christa Donner’s Epidemic become infected by a mysterious disease, the installation itself spreads across two walls in free-form panic. Despite a few duds—mostly dull collages and abstractions—this show will draw you in completely.—Lauren Weinberg