Tezh Modarressi's "Hard Times' at F.A.N. Gallery

Charm City is the title of one the urban scenes in Tezh Modarressi's new show, but it could stand as a group title just as easily. The ancient medium of encaustic painting— in which pigment is mixed with hot wax— allows Modarressi to achieve a dream-like effect and turns what could be a downbeat exhibition of old cars and trucks, less-than-thriving rural settings and run-down urban areas into a symphony of pleasant melancholy.

Modarressi is the daughter of the novelist Anne Tyler— I mention this fact only because "Hard Times" offers a sort of literary treatment of subject matters that in other hands could have been merely photographic. In Modarressi's work there is always a sense of things going on beneath the surface. Every scene has its story.

Images that are pure reportage are fine— that's what most painted and photographed images are—but they don't hold a candle to those rare images that force you to ask, And then what?

An eerie calm reigns over these 40-odd scenes in which nary a person can be seen (although one painting includes a dog). Whether Modarressi is depicting a boarded up old house, a Ferris wheel or an old two-pump gas station, she always provokes you to ask that nagging question. To my mind, this ability to seize and hold your attention makes her a talent to be reckoned with.