Kehler Liddell Decks The Walls Again

Two finely textured dolls stand facing each other. Their expressions are simple, but not simplistic. They suggest openness, warmheartedness, a willingness to engage. One of them has an open flame in her hand. She passes the flame to the other one.

The piece, by Julie Fraenkel, is called Conversation. As apt as it is for its chosen subject, it’s also a fitting concept for ​“Deck the Walls,” the last exhibition of the year from Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville. 

As the name of the show suggests, ​“Deck The Walls” — which went up at the beginning of the month and runs through Dec. 23 — is explicitly tied to the current holiday season, with prices for the art a bit more noticeable than they might be in Kehler Liddell’s regular exhibitions. The diversity of the art makes the point that, whether you’re visiting the gallery to look for a gift for someone else or to treat yourself, chances are good you’ll find something you like. But the exhibition isn’t simply a sale. It’s also a celebration of the artists in the gallery’s orbit, and as Fraenkel’s piece suggests, it offers an opportunity to pass along a spark of inspiration.

Among the many artists with work in the show, Amy Browning uses her wall space to go all in for the holidays, giving three energetically abstract paintings seasonal names. To this viewer, the abstraction conveys some of the honesty behind the optimistic titles. Wintery storms and slippery roads can accompany a snowy night, no matter how pretty it is. And the holidays can be a little chaotic, even if it’s all worthwhile.

Frank Bruckmann’s painting, meanwhile, heads in the other direction almost entirely, as it’s much more representational and redolent of warm weather. But as with Browning’s works, Bruckmann’s choice of titles adds complexity, a sense of tumult lurking beneath a sunny surface.

Liz Antle‑O’Donnell in a way lands somewhere in the middle. In getting playful with the repeated image of a house, she manages to convey a sense of domesticity and even a hint of critique of the same, while also putting the image in a blender. The chaos in a home? Outside of it? There’s room for interpretation.

Brian T. Linn’s collages are funny with just enough grotesque thrown in to reward a longer linger.

And Hank Paper’s photographs find the vibrancy in everyday scenes, the hints of symmetry and disorder that make for compelling images. It’s worth mentioning that several photographers in the gallery head toward nature photography with stunning results, whether it’s Roy Money finding the crackle in images of plants and water, or Penrhyn and Rod Cook getting mesmerized by the shapes of gargantuan ice formations with penguins as punctuation, or Sven Martson’s portraiture of African animals in all their vivid color.

But maybe ​“Deck the Walls” is encapsulated again in Tom Edwards’s array of framed sketches. Some are of statues, from a trip to Italy. Others capture the shapes of architecture from the same trip. Still other sketches are fantastical; they’re visions of buildings that physics won’t really allow to exist. The little red ​“sold” stickers in the blank spaces almost become part of the exhibit, a little reminder that you go too late, you might miss something — but there’s also still time to grab one of those sparks of artistic conversation and pass it along.

“Deck the Walls” runs at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., through Dec. 23. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.