Synthetic

Published 7:00 am Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Remember postcards? Before Facebook, we sent them to our friends to keep in touch. Think even further back, and you may recall the heavier, deluxe lenticular postcards, whose 3-D image changed as you shifted the card in your hand. Rub your fingernail against the image surface, and there was a satisfying “brrrrup” sound. Margeaux Walter uses the same effect in her photo-based works in the group show Synthetic. Walter’s panels are little narrative episodes. In one, a bevy of hot-tubbing ladies of a certain age (the Real Housewives demo) are roused from boozy stupor by the arrival of a buff cabana boy. Look more carefully at the quartet, and you’ll discern the same model (Walter herself) disguised with different wigs and swimsuits, rather like Cindy Sherman. In another single-panel triptych, a hapless woman drops her precious cellphone in the toilet. And who of us doesn’t know someone who’s experienced the same terrifying slip? Though “synthetic” implies a flight from realism and traditional themes, Walter’s work has a recognizable and almost documentary quality–only heightened and brightened. Also on view: more high-gloss, summery works by Susan Dory, Elizabeth Gahan, Liz Hickok, Shane McAdams, and Liz Tran. BRIAN MILLER

Tue., June 21, 6-8 p.m.; Mondays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Starts: June 21. Continues through Sept. 2, 2011