Give Lesa Chittenden Lim two trees and a moon and she’ll create an image to haunt your dreams.

Lesa Chittenden Lim, “Recent Paintings.” Through November 26, 2011 at F.A.N. Gallery, 221 Arch St. (215) 922-5155 or www.thefangallery.com.

She’s getting bolder

The work of some artists changes at a glacial pace, if at all, while others seem driven to re-make themselves from show to show. The pieces in this show— the third exhibition of Lesa Chittenden Lim’s elegant, meditative work that I’ve reviewed— bear a pronounced family resemblance to the pieces she last exhibited at F.A.N. (To read that review, click here.) But this time I noticed a few interesting new developments.

In terms of content, Lim is still doing studies of nature in which forms hang in space and the emptiness that surrounds them speaks volumes. Give Lim two trees and a moon and she’ll create an image to haunt your dreams.

In this new show, however, the pale, almost monochromatic quality of her earlier works has given way to a new boldness of colors and a stronger interplay of shadows and light.

The changes are clearly evident. In Winter Trees IV, you’ll see an image much closer in style and overall appearance to the works in Lim’s previous show. But if you move down a bit to Still Together, you’ll see a darker, looser work that almost recalls the work of Yves Tanguy.

I’ve deliberately chosen to mention the two pieces that seem most opposed to each other. The bulk of Lim’s pastel paintings fall in between these two extremes. It’s still elegant, meditative work. But perhaps its voice is a little louder than it once was.