Novel works by artists-in-training

Ron English's Billboard-size "Abraham Obama" hangs along Thayer Street. (David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)

Among the standard-issue operatically abstract paintings and fuzzy animal sculptures that crop up every year at the "Boston Young Contemporaries Exhibition," there's almost always something startling and original. The juried exhibit, now in its third year, showcases work made by more than 90 graduate students at 12 New England art schools.

Each summer, I look forward to this sprawling exhibit at Boston University's giant 808 Gallery. The art that jumps out is often that of some young artist with special promise, someone whose career I may chart for years and feel some pride at having caught early.

Previously, video and installation artists have carried the day, but this year, surprisingly, the standouts are mostly painters. "Zedonk," an oil-on-linen depiction of a zebra-donkey hybrid by Michelle Dennis, walks a delicious line between adorable and appalling, and it's clear that the awkward, ugly animal, while charming in itself, is also a vehicle for experimenting with paint.

On the realist side, Elizabeth Menges's daunting examination of aging "Grandma Jean" shows two versions of the old woman - one with her wig and one without. Kelli Thompson's portrait "Kita as Bowie," depicting a young woman aping David Bowie, is a gorgeous, careful examination of skin tone. Jonathan Daly imbues his moody winter nocturnes with an eerie green light that evokes January's chill. Graham Loper's small "California Variation I" gracefully captures the decay of classic California modernist architecture.

Another California painting, Tim Stark's lovely "Cali, 91, Point Break, Surfer Sunset" looks painted from a digital image, with the wave's edge breaking up into a lacy, pixilated design and the distribution of color and shadow seeming more photographic than painterly, but it's the paint that effectively captures the moment's shimmer.

Even photographer Liz Schrenk's pieces stand out because they reference painting: She has printed works such as "McHenry Outdoor Theater," a long, lovely scene of the odd lights around a drive-in, on stretched canvases, so they look more like paintings than like photographs.

David Kearns's small canvas "RUN4IT!!!" has a Philip Guston-style pugnacity; more gritty than beautiful, it shows a round figure in a blue cap making a hasty exit as a brick flies above, leaving a big brown pile of God knows what behind him. On the other end of the beauty spectrum, Julia Fernandez-Pol offers "Debajo del Hielo Verde," a wild abstract painting with a terrific assortment of marks, from fish-scale dabs to cake-decorating filigrees; in sea-foam tones, there's an undersea magic and movement to the piece.

Last year, Michael Finnegan had a couple of oil-on-aluminum monotypes in the show; this year he has one gorgeous large one, "Starting Off," depicting a couple in front of a church on a sunny day. The printing plate pulls the oil paint off his aluminum backing with a wonderful, tacky texture and leaves some areas completely blank; the scene seems to at once coalesce and fall apart.

Jacob Kincheloe's technically splendid drawing of a nude man in supplication comes across as understated until you recognize that his skin has been flayed from the lower half of his body and draped over one of his arms. The delicate collages of Deb Karpman, such as "Tumbleweed," show how exquisite attention to detail can give small works a big presence.

Mayen Alcantara's comical interactive video "Alternative Kiosk for Providence Place Mall" lets you choose your destination, and then a young woman in a yellow jacket appears, gesturing and swiveling like a traffic cop on ecstasy, to indicate directions. Equally funny, Sean Johnson's photographs of men partaking in odd rituals, such as "Beard Washing," evoke a warm, almost feminine camaraderie.

"Boston Young Contemporaries" has as much to yawn at as it has to smile at, but in an especially slow summer for art, it's a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Political mash-up
Seeing the news reports of Ron English's billboard-size installation "Abraham Obama" and the smaller fliers posted around town, I clucked scornfully. English has melded together the features of Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln, and the idea struck me as gimmicky and simplistic.

Then I saw the installation. Part of Gallery XIV's "a politic" group show, it hangs along Thayer Street. People were having their pictures taken in front of it. "Abraham Obama" is a striking figure, handsome, with warm eyes. The face has lost Lincoln's gaunt and haunted look; mixing Obama in, English has made him appear like a matinee idol.

It's fair to put Obama, who will soon become the first major-party African-American nominee for US president, in the same image with the president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. English is a provocateur; the response to his work is more his medium than printmaking. It's not the art (though that is skillful); it's the idea, which has to be pithy, saleable, and not too complex. He knows how to make an image that will push people's buttons.

In a Democratic stronghold such as Boston, folks may see "Abraham Obama" and swoon. But what would happen, say, in Jackson, Wyo.? In the end, "Abraham Obama" is a gimmick, but at this moment, it's a gimmick with potential. English should take it on the road and see what happens.