RECOMMENDED Patch traveled to Matinicus Island, Maine, where he was born in, to depict the small town with its picturesque beaches contouring the blue skied coast and boats wading in the harbor. But underneath the town’s superficial beauty lurks trouble. Countless articles have documented the town’s lobster wars with fishermen going as far as shooting each other. Patch perceives the island mostly with tranquil and colorful images in his still life acrylic paintings. “Outgoing Tide” generates a landscape with a boathouse, reflections in water and treelined pines. His paintings do not contain any people, thus forming isolating, natural representations of the subject. “Sunrise Boat” is a starker palate with boats treading in gray water and only a yellow spark illuminating from the tiny vessel. “Flakeyard House” slants on a hillside revealing its imperfections. To emphasis the lobster wars, the most disturbing painting is a white house with outlines of lobsters on it and a tacky, pick-up truck parked in front that reads “Grizz” on the side indicating potentially aggressive inhabitants. Some of Patch’s earlier paintings are abstract watercolors, but his latest paintings are lucid and simultaneously tinged with a purity that seems too good to be true. (Garin Pirnia) Through November 24 at Monique Meloche
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