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WEDNESDAY

An entire wall of my great-grandfather’s house in Calcutta used to be covered with a huge image of a beach. We would line up for family photos in front of green palms that made my eyes ache, sand as potentially tasty as semolina, and, of course, the mirage of water. In the one photo I still have, a chunk of the adjoining wall has crept in, white and prosaic. Maybe my unruly family was too hard to herd into a perfect composition. Or maybe the infringing whiteness was crucial in keeping us from becoming trapped without bearings in that liquid landscape. Some psychoanalysts define “screen memories” as recollections of innocuous events that cover up memories of trauma. But what happens when the screens are physical? At the Foundry Gallery this month, Jay Schlueter, who has presented some striking paintings of koi in the past, offers a series of painted scrims that neither cover nor conceal; in fact, they were partly inspired by Baltimore’s tradition of screen-door painting. Colors applied to wet cotton or polyester shimmer and change based on the light and your location. Unfortunately, for all their moiré sheen, the images themselves (which include a monkey boy, a woman with snaky hair, and a hippie) are forgettable. Still, in Schlueter’s work, it’s the surfaces that lurk beneath that demand a second look: Cloth is almost water, almost wood. The show is on view from noon to 6 p.m. (to Oct. 2; see City List for other dates) at the Foundry Gallery, 1314 18th St. NW. Free. (202) 463-0203. (Bidisha Banerjee)