Plain and fancy

Local abstract-realist painter Melissa Chandon Snow is back. At least, that’s what she was exclaiming at the opening of her solo show at the Phoenix Framing & Gallery, at 1901 Capitol Avenue, last Saturday. A few years ago, Chandon Snow was busy cranking out paintings of simple objects and places, painted with a distinctive colorful palette. Then she all but disappeared from the gallery scene, just as she was on the rise. But something must have happened in her absence, because this new show is by far Chandon Snow’s strongest to date. The paintings in the show still bear her stylistic stamp, but the compositions, and the subtle placement of just the right colors, make the viewer want to know just what it is about these simple paintings that makes them so captivating. Making a solitary object interesting is an exercise in nuance, and now that Chandon Snow is doing it so well, let’s hope she doesn’t disappear again. (The gallery will move to new digs at 1729 L Street on June 1.)