Critic's picks - Art

Michele Natale on the best in art

If you're out on the Third Friday Durham art walk tonight, see "Miss Maready's Enlightened Illustrations" upstairs in the Semans Gallery of the Durham Arts Council Building. Rachel Maready Bowman's mesmerizing oil paintings find the artist quietly mourning the death of her father, seeking solace in nature's cycles, and drawing inspiration from Buddhist meditation practices, reflected in the tiny, radiating dots of paint that enliven the surfaces of these special works, indelibly stamped with their maker's personality. Through Sunday. 120 Morris St., Durham. 560-2787, www.durhamarts.org.

On Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m., Craven Allen Gallery opens "Secrets & Lies," showcasing Linwood Hart's richly layered, intimately scaled panel paintings, and Kathryn DeMarco's life-size, figural cut-paper compositions, achieved in subtle gradations of black, white and gray. 1106 1/2 Broad St., Durham. 286-4837, www.CravenAllenGallery.com.

The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke recently opened "Re-collecting Family Albums: Finding Home After Katrina," a project incorporating photography, handmade books and audio, on view in the Porch Gallery. Five families, relocated to the Triangle after the Katrina disaster, participated, telling their inspiring stories of survival. Forging ahead with new lives, they impart their wisdom. "Now home to me isn't just a place," says Natasha Ben. "It's what's in your heart, pretty much wherever you are." Especially moving are Pamela Broom's remembrances of her father in "Recollecting Willie Broom." Plan on spending 20 or 30 minutes taking in these real stories and images. 1317 W. Pettigrew St., Durham. 660-3663, http://cds.aas.duke.edu.

At N.C. Central University Art Museum, a rewarding selection of gifts and purchases made over the past year and a half are highlighted in "New Acquisitions," which runs through Oct. 5. An early career Henry Ossawa Tanner etching, "Christ Walking on the Waters," sensitively and energetically executed, complements a Tanner oil painting of poplars already in the collection. A beguiling Faith Ringgold sculpture, "Leila and Myrtle," brings to life two memorable characters outfitted in print fabrics, snips of fur and feathers. Donor Nancy Warburton gave the museum four oils on Masonite by acclaimed South Carolina Low Country artist Jonathan Green, as well as five other works including prints by Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence and a stunning painting by Geoffrey Holder, "The Acrobat." Two works by Durham artist Willie Nash are historical paintings depicting the African-American presence in the American West, while two others are the genre subjects for which he is best known. Also hailing from Durham, Aaron Michael Moore is represented by two fine works, one titled "Barbershop," the other untitled. These works fascinate with their bold use of thick impasto. The creamy tonalities of "Barbershop" are balanced by the mysterious, brooding blue-black palette of the untitled work, both of which are gifts of Daniel Ellison. Lawson Street, Durham 530-6211.

Branch Gallery hosts Lump Gallery founder Bill Thelan with "minor character," the gallery's first one-person show. Thelan, an MFA graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, provides a tasty sampler of his work as he bends multiple genres to his purposes -- here, to honor marginalized places and people. Thelan provides a site-specific painting installation referring to the Heaven's Gate cult, as well as minimal and op art, a pair of obsessive, time-consuming dot-patterned drawings; a quilt honoring Roy Garrett Samber, made in collaboration with his sister; a voyeuristic video made from the imagined viewpoint of a shut-in; and a scale model of Biscuit King, a Durham building slated for demolition, replete with boarded-up windows and graffiti, made in collaboration with artist Jerstin Crosby. Thelan's wry, sometimes oblique takes on contemporary culture reveal his ever-active mind constantly reworking art history in the service of his unique aesthetic. 401-C Foster St., Durham 918-1116, www.branchgallery.com.