Artist Garrett Middaugh spent decades in the world of graphic design and became known for realistic depictions of trees and forests with mesmerizing attention to detail. Swinging the pendulum the other way for a new focus on surrealism, the painter embraces the absurd and aims to “inject ‘nonsense’ into my paintings” and to “negate any ‘meaning’ or narrative that starts to develop.” The busy and colorful results are something like a dream, leaving the viewer to search and interpret them by intuition, finding symbolism in the rich imagery on the canvas that nods to masters like Calder, Ernst, and Monet. – Kat McNevins
Through Sept. 13