Kiersten Essenpreis’ dreamlike paintings explore the often unreliable evolution of our personal memories, where a childish exaggeration embellishes our thoughts while exposing secrets, nightmares and wish fulfillment. A hooded girl opens a treasure chest full of bats, octopus tentacles and crabs climb out of a sleeping girl’s sock drawer, and twin sisters are literally stuck at the top of the stairs in melted black tar. These characters are in quiet, domestic settings-the most unlikely of places for the fantastical to occur and yet it is easy to relate to Essenpreis’ unsettling narratives.

In his new body of work, John Orth attempts to meld the scientific with the fantastic. Inspired by the fact that tears of joy have a different chemical makeup than tears of sadness, Orth draws a series of weeping mascots whose rivulets of tears fall and transform into intricate, brittle formations. Orth’s depiction of crystal formations, which make up the other portion of this show, are also borne out of moments of agitation. This time literal, earthly agitations such as gravity and heat act to yield objects of otherworldly beauty. They are represented with crisp outlines and pastel fields of color that evoke early cell animation with a softness and a sadness that is as compelling as its subject matter.