Get to 'Work' – a new show at Groveland Gallery

Painting everyday objects always feels like beginner's sorcery: Take a lifeless thing, fuzz out its edges with brushstrokes or smeared graphite, and you re-animate it as a sort of spiritual magnet, emitting waves of mood, knowledge, heartbreak. Such is the case with the vintage tools and toolboxes in Joshua Huyser's new series "Work." Plucked from context and presented blankly against white backdrops, these vintage monkey wrenches, lanterns and tackle boxes — inspired by Huyser's Montana childhood spent in the shops and sheds of his frontiersman father — cut the black coffee of "men's work" with the cream of tonal subtlety. Like Morandi's famous bottles, the tools, in finely controlled watercolor or ghostly graphite, shimmer in atmospherics and become just a touch enigmatic. They look both totally normal and naggingly altered — real, but dampened by the waters of memory and feeling. (Free opening reception 2-5 p.m. Sat., Groveland Gallery, 25 Groveland Terrace, Mpls. grovelandgallery.com)

GREGORY J. SCOTT