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Theater

Markham Starr’s ‘In History’s Wake’; and Linda Nagaoka

Starr's 32 black-and-white photos feel comprehensive — the work of a good photojournalist — but seem somewhat detached from the fishermen (the guys often appear self-conscious in portraits). His best photos are about beauty and romance and graphic design, like a shot of the three-man crew of the North Star hauling in nets, isolated but steadfast atop a calm misty sea, their floating lines spreading out around them like a spider web.

FANTASYLAND An image from Nagaoka’s “Love Lands.’

Brooklyn artist Linda Nagaoka invents her own dreamy doodly world in fine-lined marker drawings in her exhibit "Love Lands" at Yellow Peril Gallery (60 Valley Street, Providence, through June 10). Fanciful stone houses, columns, arches, and elevated paths look like architecture designed by Gaudi and Dr. Seuss. Giant flowers and floating blossoms surround the buildings; here and there we catch glimpses of the sea. Nagaoka also presents a handful of paintings, but they don't have the crisp command or invention of her drawings, which are animated by patterns of stones, raindrops, woven waves, and fishscale clouds and flowers, as well as collaged-on color photos of Nagaoka's young daughter Nikko, flowers, birds, an elephant, butterflies, a hummingbird, and spiders. The drawings are pinned up across one long wall of the gallery, each scene linking to the next, adding up to one big picture mapping a fantasyland. You want to wander through it, on and on.

Read Greg Cook's blog at  gregcookland.com/journal.