Paintings awaken the eye at Kingston Gallery

Lynda Schlosberg’s “Tuning In”Courtesy of Kingston Gallery

Lynda Schlosberg’s paintings at Kingston Gallery are less about what you see than how you are seeing it.

The paintings are gorgeous, effervescent, dancing tangles of seductive color. Worth a visit if you just want to look. But if you want to see, spend time and let the paintings do their work. 

Schlosberg calls the exhibition “Frequency Tuning.” She sets out to explore how the eye, used as a tuning device, can navigate what she calls in her statement “an invisible sea of energy beyond our awareness.” That might mean anything from your WiFi connection to God. Her paintings foil expectations of space and form. Vaulting us into the unknown, they awaken the eye.

In “Tuning In,” several strands twist diagonally down the panel: two solid rivers of deep teal; wild, whipsawing threads of orange; intricately dotted splatters; sections of grid that swerve and undulate like a fishing net in a riptide.

Foreground flips to background in the blink of an eye, and space folds over on itself. Volumes flatten. We get pulled into the motion and thrown right back out. This is energy itself, and it is a jolt.

The audacious push-pull of Schlosberg’s many layers is reminiscent of Frank Stella’s later work, but less calamitous, less about pushing and more about perceiving. She is controlling in her execution, filling great passages with thousands of tiny dots and countless wavering grids. Some of these paintings might be aerial views of teeming cities, interlaced with cascading weather systems and infographics gone berserk.

Then there are sections of pure surrender to the paint, such as the shimmering, vaporous blue that cuts across “Remembering the Future” like a great sigh. Such moments are an invitation to soak. In “It’s All in Your Mind,” lolling, inky whirlpools punctuate a riotous web of colors that turn space on its head again. Those whirlpools seem to bubble up from the deep. They gaze out at us. They beckon us to stay and gaze right back.

LYNDA SCHLOSBERG: FREQUENCY TUNING

At Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave., through June 2. 617-423-4113, www.kingstongallery.com