Still lifes with a modern twist

In her show at Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Mia Brownell spins out a contemporary version of the old Dutch master s still lifes: The glistening grapes are there, as are the plump pears and round-bottomed plums. But these still lifes are anything but still. They whirl, float, and whipsaw through space, taking the forms of DNA helixes and chains of amino acids. These foodstuffs, in short, represent the very stuff of life.

It's a 21st-century take on the 17th-century genre, pulled off with thrilling technique -- a postmodern fruit cocktail that marries today's fascination with genetics and the building blocks of life with old-style painterly seduction. Using dramatic lighting and sometimes deep perspective, Brownell sets her still lifes against grounds of inky black or stark white.

"Still Life With Villin Headpiece II" (the title names a kind of protein) writhes out of blackness. Grapes, like multiple strings of pearls, grow luminously on the vine. The occasional brawny green pear, despite its muscular heft, appears to fly through the air. The movement in these still lifes took my breath away; there's a sense of something wild unleashed.

The darker paintings have a brooding, Baroque affect. Those on white grounds are also Baroque in their wild ornamentation, but less moody and more like a dance. The delicate "Zymotic Tonic II" (referring to fermentation) unfolds against ivory. Here, the grapes are green and dusty, swirling like a giddy barn dance around a pale center.

Like the Dutch masters before her, Brownell evokes a celebration of plenty. There's a foreboding in her work, as well: a warning to drink from life's cup while you can.

A Zen riddle asks "What did your face look like before you were born?" One never knows with Zen riddles, but the kernel of the question seems to be this: Underneath all the socially constructed personae, who are you? Is there an essential self?

Artist Jay Bordage has organized (and beautifully installed) a group show at GASP that attempts to unpeel some of those masks. It is by turns light-hearted, piercing, and whimsically off topic, but mostly worthwhile.

Bordage's own work features photos he made based on the 18th-century sculptures of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt , who carved busts portraying moments of extreme emotion. To capture ordinarily fleeting moments in sculpture anticipates photography; to then re-create them in photos makes a clever contemporary coda to Messerschmidt's work. They're all comical -- who knew a face could be so rubbery?

Annie Heisey , who just got her master's from Boston University, lyrically paints life as perceived through the lens of stress. You can see it in the faces above and below the water in her "Baptism" series, and particularly in the hand pressed against the shower stall in "Self-Portrait Through Frosted Glass." Heisey deploys the reflections and distortions of water, steam, and glass to disrupt the viewer's reading of her subjects, and she ends up making lovely, disturbing paintings.

Gillian O'Flaherty's photos of women dressed up as their favorite male rock stars are funny, if - by - now - predictable twists on gender personae. Darren Miller's installation "3400" is hard to make sense of in the context of this show; perhaps a performance he did here would better explain it. Yet the installation itself pulls you in. It's an all-white office, littered with shredded paper. Miller has strung 3,400 white cardboard tags from the ceiling beneath a blue-white light; they make a peaceful rustle. The space is oddly contemplative, given its 9-to-5 trappings. Every office should have a retreat like this.

You can almost hear the frogs croaking and birds singing in "Flora and Fauna," a group show at OH+T Gallery that seems at once tidy and overgrown. The installation is spare; the paintings burst with nature's threat (and sometimes culture's, too). Heidi Johnson jam-packs her paintings with references to both. "Currier, Stubbs, Audubon" has brilliant tropical fish (courtesy of 18th-century illustrator George Stubbs) and delicately patterned birds (Audubon) filling the foreground, while a snowy scene from Currier and Ives makes a romantic background, with a VW Beetle thrown in to bring us up to the 21st century. It's a hodgepodge that feels at once festive and foreboding.

Ben Snead's paintings are more orderly, but still tinged with fear. In "Poison Connection" he makes a simple pattern out of several brightly colored poisonous frogs. Against a yellow ground, they make up a kind of mandala or hex sign. Abstract painter Wendy Edwards drizzles skeins of paint, making floating nets. In "Wake Up," she uses shades of blue on orange, with happy daisy shapes appearing in gaps. It's sweet, but not as complex or engaging as her other piece here, "Pocket," in which she layers the nets -- but "Pocket" doesn't really fit the nature theme.

Mia Brownell: Pears & Polypeptides
At: Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, 14 Newbury St., through July 6. 617-424-8468, judygoldmanfineart.com

Self-Entanglements
At: GASP, 362 Boylston St., Brookline, through June 30. 617-731-2500, g-a-s-p.net

Flora and Fauna: Wendy Edwards, Heidi Johnson, Ben Snead
At: OH+T Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave., through June 23. 617-423-1677, ohtgallery.com