Rachel Beach, The Buccaneer, 2008, walnut veneer, oil paint, mixed mediums, 38 3/4 x 6 1/2 x 5 1/2, inches.

Drawing from Escherian optical illusion, Islamic geometric design, cartoons and other graphic wellsprings, Beach's sculpture-paintings are given to conceptual metamorphosis. The Bucaneer, for example, might be interpreted variously as a phallus, crenelation, spear, paintbrush or missile, and the many "portal" works can be viewed as annihilating black holes, avenues of escape, or sexualized orifices. (Indeed, the exhibition's title invites both transcendental and base, sexual interpretations of the artwork.)

The works' plural meaning also evinces a sharp wit. The caduceus-like structure of The White Whale evokes the spout of Melville's allegorical beast, but also calls to mind Captain Ahab's determined folly and The Pequod, the vessel that pursued Moby Dick, a ship populated by an ethnically and religiously diverse crew. The contemporary geopolitical parallels and Melville's then peculiarly American brand of fatalistic optimism are, one senses, all taken into account by Beach.

Reflecting our present ideological uncertainty, the viewer's perception of the work vacillates, but Beach's sculptures respond to this generalized global anxiety by offering a hopeful, aesthetic alternative. The work's charitable heart is most apparent in The Mothership, a large Ouroboros with arabesques replacing the traditional snake's head and tail. The symbol represents eternal recurrence or the cyclical nature of the universe. There is some comfort in this notion of cyclicality; in a world preoccupied by the precipice, it's valuable to contemplate a new beginning, again and again.