Danforth finds the ties that bind

What could Rhoda Rosenberg’s abstract prints possibly have in common with Sachiko Akiyama’s figurative sculptures? Both probe emotional life, particularly grief and letting go. Brice Marden, the big name, has a small show of contemplative prints in a hallway gallery; they make neat formal ties to Rosenberg’s more passion-driven work. Carol Keller, better known as a sculptor, has a hallway exhibit of abstract collages that also link to the three other shows.

“Rhoda Rosenberg: The Shape of Memory,’’ curated by Pamela Allara and Catherine Mayes, delves into prints Rosenberg has made since 2004, following her mother’s death. She takes inspiration from Simone de Beauvoir, who wrote about her own mother’s passing, describing the balls of wool and unfinished knitting in her mother’s straw bag.

Rosenberg develops her own language of coils, spirals, and snarls. “Dear Mom, Love Rhoda,’’ the earliest piece in the exhibit, features handwritten text on a great length of coiled paper, laid flat and impossible to read, an endless ribbon of hidden sentiments. Similarly, the woodcut “Dear Rhoda, Dear Sylvia,’’ sporting a slender white spiral on a teal ground, is covered with text that is often illegible. It doesn’t matter, perhaps, what was said — what matters is the connection.

But everything is exposed in “Matrilineal Threads,’’ an expansive artist’s book mounted on a long, curving wall. It juts out in accordion folds, casting fanglike shadows. A heavy dark line travels its tangling way across the pages, which offer a masterly display of printmaking techniques, including woodcuts, etchings, monotypes, and linocuts. The line violates yet ties together the individual pages featuring, in the uncertain, deeply felt rhythm of memory, coiled balls, dresses, doily patterns, and more floating over moody, inky textures. “Grief’s route?’’ I scribbled in my notebook, intrigued and appalled by the ragged, demanding line. Perhaps, but on the very last page, Rosenberg writes “Umbilicus.’’ Certainly, the two are intertwined.

Nearby, “Brice Marden: Prints, 1983-1998,’’ put together by museum director Katherine French, makes a Zen counterpoint to Rosenberg’s storminess. The show features three small bodies of work, tracing Marden’s movement from the edge of minimalism. It begins with the 1983 screen prints “Untitled #38, 1-4,’’ in which he conveys the elemental unit of the modernist grid, the square, with an expressive, calligraphic brushstroke. In “Han Shan Exit, 1-6,’’ etchings and aquatints made in 1993, he’s abandoned the grid for a twisting web of calligraphic lines, sometimes thick with ink, sometimes just traced. Finally, in the etchings and aquatints “Suzhou, I-IV’’ (1996-1998) he adds green to his palette, and his gestures, inspired by Chinese “scholar’s rocks,’’ used as meditation objects, are clean and looping; they suggest both form and transparency. The line is full and twisting, like Rosenberg’s, but less fraught.

Like Rosenberg, Akiyama turns to her family for inspiration. “Sachiko Akiyama: Things Unseen’’ was curated by Nina Nielsen and John Baker, former owners of the longtime Newbury Street stalwart Nielsen Gallery. “Shared Departures’’ shows Akiyama’s parents in carved, painted wood. Both stand stiffly, formally. He holds an oar, representing a journey. She holds a sparrow in each hand, suggesting her two daughters about to take flight.

Akiyama carves family members and herself in a series of extraordinarily restrained portraits. In the hands of a lesser sculptor, the restraint might simply convey unease, but Akiyama’s figures glow with a vital inner life.

“I Remember What I Did Not See’’ shows the artist prone, eyes closed, with her knees tucked to one side, one hand on her heart, the other open and holding a bird. Every toe, every feather is delineated, but there’s still a bluntness to Akiyama’s forms that suggests that flesh is a poor, awkward sleeve for the soul.

The birds and other animals echo folklore and animism. In addition to freestanding sculptures, Akiyama carves reliefs, such as “Four Corners of the Floating Wind,’’ an artfully composed fairy tale in which she holds the hand of a smaller version of herself, and confronts a blue heron. Other herons rise and fly above them; you can almost hear the rough clatter of their wings.

The untitled collages on wood panel in “Carol Keller: Erratics in the Wood’’ (also organized by Nielsen and Baker) often retain the lush texture of the wood grain, which ties them to Akiyama’s sculptures. These riff on boulders. Keller finds them in the forest near her home in Western Massachusetts. They’re known geologically as erratics, because they were dropped randomly from glacial ice flows.

Like Marden’s take on scholar’s rocks, there’s nothing dense or heavy about these pieces. The largest one jumps off a ground that could swallow you up, coated with velvety vertical strokes of mauve. Over the surface wriggle two linear forms, with the same edgy energy of Rosenberg’s unending lines. One is pale gray, floating ghostly like plastic on the wind. The other is a Day-Glo orange loop, charged as a third rail. Keller’s daring use of color makes her another visual tone in a suite of exhibits that complement each other beautifully.

Cate McQuaid can be reached at cmcq@speakeasy.net.