The 17 oil paintings in Berlin-based Thomas Zipp's solo show wryly complicate two familiar genres: landscape painting and the female nude. The archest piece in a series of female portraits, Die Entstehung der Milchstrasse (The Origins of the Milky Way) — named after the famous Tintoretto painting — features perspectival lines that radiate from a woman's nipples, making her breasts the vanishing points for the male gaze. Meanwhile, the trees dominating large landscapes, as in A.B. INSIDE, dissolve into calligraphic arabesques or coiled spirals, and the artist's titles, such as Autrespace, suggest the punning instability of language as well as visual forms. What saves his wit from preciousness, however, is the strength of his painting. Zipp's expressive brushwork and moodily muted palette allow him to make confident and subversive explorations of his chosen subjects.

-Adam Eaker