RECOMMENDED

Walking into Roots & Culture on an off day is always a treat. Two welcoming tiger-striped cats play fought on the wooden floor underneath the paintings and it was good to be inside out of the weather. Above the cats hung works by Carmen Price and Kristen VanDeventer. Price presented delicate gouache paintings of slightly folksy figures. Usually hovering in space as a tableau, the figures engage in a group activity, as in “Honing In.” Here a line of men carry an array of weaponry such as Uzis, axes and torches in search of something, like a mob on a witch-hunt. Price’s quirky imagery is never so vague as to be indecipherable but also never so clear as to be too literal. VanDeventer’s modestly scaled oil paintings feature strangely figured elements and bright color choices. When in her element, VanDeventer’s vision cranks out poetic works like “Sunset Eyes” and “Horizon” in which a darkly silhouetted figure stares off the canvas with its diminutive yellow pupils. Unfortunately some others don’t live up to that standard and don’t make sense within the context of the show. “Feral Children” suffers from a lack of coherence but its successes make it worth a look, especially on a lazy Chicago afternoon. (Dan Gunn)

Through May 17 at Roots & Culture, 1034 N. Milwaukee.

RECOMMENDED

Again and again arcane histories and contemporary legends collide; a portrait of John F. Kennedy from a “magic-bullet’s eye” point-of-view is shown alongside a drawing combining massive pyramids within an urban landscape. The work between both artists communicates in such a similar fashion that at times it cannot be immediately distinguished who was the maker. Fenchel displays a number of digital collages, composites of nature photography, vaguely ritual images, color fields, all arranged in simple geometric forms, reminiscent of both abstracted hieroglyphic symbols and Albers color studies. Meara presents a collection of music videos installed in an array of boxy televisions and synchronized incandescent lights, all at once like a thrift store, nightclub and Nam June Paik installation. The rear of the gallery is covered in clear vinyl wallpaper adorned with CDRs gutted to gold leaf thinness. This, along with most everything else in the show, is a fine demonstration of the abstraction of stored information; representative of ever present patternmaking and abstraction produced throughout the cycles of time. (Lisa Larson-Walker)

Through March 15 at Roots & Culture, 1034 N. Milwaukee.