Taking circles for a spin

The drawings in this show are a variation on her recent work featuring rows and rows of horizontal bands of color. Here we see concentric circles, hand-drawn, in thin rings and fat rings, some narrowing into ovals, all in a riot of tones. Munroe says they're inspired by a halo the artist saw in an early Renaissance painting. They also must take inspiration from nature. Even if Wilson is no longer a landscape painter, her colors, and the way she gathers them, carry sun and shadow. Her circles have a kinship with flowers (she is an avid gardener) and with radiant reflections on water.

They spin, waver, tunnel, and pulse. "Phoenix" starts with a pale green pinhead dot at the center and quickly spreads left and right into an oval. It's like looking inside a pot as it's worked on a potter's wheel, stretching here, compressing there. The green dot winks in a puddle of orange, then red, green again, and luminous school-bus yellow - and those are just the inner circles.

Wilson is canny and experimental with her tones, so they pop and accrete into particular moods. "Castalia" resonates with luminous blues such as aqua, dusty periwinkle, and the tone of a thunderstruck evening sky; then Wilson threads in yellows, oranges, and greens that jump against the blues.

The colors are crisp; the lines are not. They smudge, without robbing the work of clarity. Indeed, the handmade quality of these works makes them all the more engaging, human amid the tonal intimations of the divine. Like a mandala, you could gaze at one for a long time, and never tire.

Mystery in the images

Brad Phillips is provocatively coy in his painting show at LaMontagne Gallery. His wife appears in many of the works, but we never see her face clearly. In "park and 79th", he beautifully captures the planes and gleam of her bare back as she dresses; in "no comebacks," we glimpse her in a mirror, climbing stairs in a sweatshirt and underwear, but we can't see her eyes.