William Busta Gallery continues a streak of impressive showings by artists on its roster with its Summer Painting Exhibition. All of the pieces in the show were completed in the few weeks leading up to the opening, and it's extremely fresh and accomplished work.

In the very front of the gallery Eva Kwong's "Spotted Acalephoid," an approximately 24-inch-tall jellyfish-like ceramic sculpture, sets a light and playful tone. It's spotted, bright pink and the only object that's not on the wall, but instead is presented on a pedestal, all of which makes it difficult to miss. This bizarrely entertaining anthropomorphic little sculpture seems as though it will jump to the floor and chase visitors as they begin moving through the gallery.

Reminiscent of the stickies my mother would change every season on our overworked family microwave, Lorri Ott's brightly colored urethane resin and mixed-media abstract wall sculptures continue the visual fun. Juxtaposing Kwong's sculpture with Ott's creates a push/pull dialogue between the two artists' work: Kwong insisting on light and fun; Ott only flirting with those qualities while interjecting a more serious sensibility. Her tightly defined aesthetic alludes to a developed visual language, but the small sampling of her work within a group exhibition makes obtaining a more complete understanding a slightly more challenging task.

Changing to a new and smaller loom earlier this year, recent Cleveland Arts Prize recipient Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson continues to produce soft and seductive silk weavings. Her palette is softer and brighter than I've seen in previous collections of her work. While still drawing inspiration from the Icelandic landscape, here she begins to explore and expand her depth of field. She's introducing vertical veils over horizontal fields to push the picture plane farther from the surface of the weaving. Jónsson continues to perfect her weaving while introducing subtle and quiet formal nuances. It will be exciting to see what develops next.

Showing his most successful work to date, Matthew Kolodziej has begun to translate his thick acrylic impasto technique into 30-by-22-inch gouache-on-paper works. Kolodziej loses the tactilely dense and layered effect of his straight-from-the-tube application of the acrylic paint, but achieves the same sense of depth and chaos by working brightly colored gouaches. These works on paper may be preliminary studies for his paintings. It is easier to make sense of the madness in gouache rather than acrylic. Shifting from canvas to paper reinforces his exploration of topography and creates a tighter connection to the cartologist/artist on a mission to document something slightly more metaphysical than merely recording terrain and elevation.

Free Times art critic Douglas Max Utter's work takes best in show (even if we do say so here on our own pages). His five paintings are brighter than usual for him and utilize a nearly uniform palette of kelly green, goldenrod and slate blue with cracking surfaces complicating the figurative faces. Referencing the palette and atmospheric portraits of Francesco Clemente and Francis Bacon, Utter's work emanates a dark, brooding psychology. In this grouping of work, he insists on telling deeply rooted stories of a troubled humanity. "Slander: Wig and Self Tanner" is the only work in which he uses a sepia wash. The wash, resembling the color and texture of self-tanning dye, falls from the top of the canvas across the figure's face, leaving only a section of the natural skin tone exposed. Contrasted against the natural-colored flesh, the self-tanning wash cuts a sharp psychological tear through his work and across the gallery. Using this technique Utter ignites the emotional gaze of the figure. Suddenly, the shape of the eyes, the clinched lips and the posture of the head expose the gravity of the character's mental conflicts. The character's presence is so powerful that one cannot dodge empathetic feelings. Quickly, an accompanying dose of self-criticism and self-awareness creeps into your mind and lingers for days.

Summer Painting Exhibition: Through July 26 at William Busta Gallery, 216.298.9071.