Gregory Jacobsen's second solo exhibition at Zg Gallery represents an advance over the first, which occured only 15 months ago. Instead of just continuing the regional painting style known as Imagism, here he significantly alters and expands it, creating an entire world of fantasy that in some respects may seem familiar from fairy tales but is inverted

A lightened palette is a key agent in this, as is an apparent shift in inspiration from such 20th century expressionists as Otto Dix and George Grosz to anonymous medieval painters and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Such sources are felt most clearly in the teeming tiny figures of the larger painting "Terratoma Tower," but there's also a hint of the symbolical figures composed of fruits or animals by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, though Jacobsen isn't much interested in symbolism and his creatures are likely to come together from junk food.

The bright candy colors suggest a world of innocence despite unabating mayhem in Jacobsen's works. So the violence and raunchiness common tto his earlier paintings are here made to convey normalcy among shriveled denizens who prey upon each other and endure innumerable humiliations but are rendered by Jacobsen to appear comfortable, even happy.

The relish and consistency with which the artist creates this world are something to behold. the work is more than disagreeable; it's on its way to carving out a place for itself in the art of the grotesque.