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TO OCT. 15
With a few exceptions, the 15 artists contributing to “House” have stuck with the more literal of the title word’s dual meanings: “house” rather than “community.” Rebecca Rheesone of several who’ve patterned their works after the iconic five-sided imagecreates a fractured, yet pleasingly coherent image of a wooden house from old-fashioned tintype photographs. Washington local Aylene Fallah toys with the obscuring effects of lace over black-and-white photographs, incorporating family photos into baby-girl dresses. Fellow D.C. artist Jaimie Beach offers two photographs of abandoned living spaces whose cheery pink and orange paint jobs add a touch of irony to the horrendous messes on view. Lynda Andrus’ Bed of Dreams offers a potent mix of whimsy and creepiness: Though Andrus explains that her small model of a prairie-house bed is intended to suggest “comfort, promise, stability and love,” her decision to sew miniature toys to the mattress (tea cups, bikes, scissors) lends a bed-of-pains patina to the project. The show’s standout, though, is Bakersfield, Calif.-based painter Christine Gavin, whose heavily impastoed and lacquered portraits deftly express middle-class angst. In Weekend Daddy (pictured), a man in a fetal position crumples under Tinkertoys like a saint under the arrows of martyrdom, and in Remote Control #2, an alienated family of three gives one another the silent treatment in front of an unseen television. Remote, indeed. The show is on view from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, and from noon to 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays, to Wednesday, Oct. 15, at CP Artspace, 1350 I St. NW. Free. (202) 326-0447. (Louis Jacobson)