Lynne Saad

If you were to wake one morning and jot down images from a particularly strange dream, you might produce a storyboard for one of Lynne Saad's richly textured and extremely mixed-media paintings. The longtime Seattle artist and former public-school art teacher layers acrylic paint on wood panels, embellishes them with a collage of curious pictures found in old magazines, and christens them with enigmatic titles like "Found #5," "Gee Whiz," or "Blah, Blah, Aha." To these patchworks, Saad adds small, fine paintings of seemingly random images—an Impressionistic evergreen tree, a sketch of an off-white coat, a duck head—creating incongruous juxtapositions along the lines of the Surrealists' prized "chance encounters." Another set of paintings is comprised of oversized playing cards Saad bought at the novelty shop Archie McPhee, then stitched together into a quilt of sorts. Covered with layers of paint and cryptic symbolism, their quirky provenance isn't obvious; once known, it adds to the meaning of the piece. In one panel, Saad has painted over a lace handkerchief, co-opting both the texture and all the implications of the past life of a woman's lost hanky. Balancing out the artist's sometimes somber palette and faintly melancholy undertones is a touch of absurdist humor, like a small portrait of a neatly coiffed woman matter-of-factly wearing Mickey Mouse ears. What saves the work from its own idiosyncrasy is its engagingly mysterious detail. Curious as they may at first seem, Saad's memory paintings also tap into something familiar. As with Italo Calvino's finely detailed narrative portraits of "invisible cities" that don't exist in waking reality, if you look at Saad's work long enough, something in them will jog a real memory. Catherine Person Gallery, 319 Third Ave. S., 206-763-5565, www.catherinepersongallery.com. Ends Dec. 23.