Playing Together, Living Together -- Terry Furchgott's Paintings Reflect Peace And Unity

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"Terry Furchgott: New Work in Pastel and Acrylic," at Lisa Harris Gallery, 1922 Pike Place, through Dec. 31. Hours are 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays.

"Sean Hurley, New Work, " at Battery Street Gallery, 113 Battery St., through Jan. 8. Hours are noon to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. -----------------------------------------------------------------

There is nothing in Terry Furchgott's paintings that overtly says "Christmas." Judging from her subjects' clothing and the leaf-laden trees in the background of her paintings shown this month at Lisa Harris Gallery, Furchgott's figurative scenes of women, girls and children seem to be set mainly in summer or spring.

Yet these imaginatively composed, well-painted scenes of moments of friendship and community are full of the kind of peace, harmony and understanding that Christmas is supposed to be about. Furchgott's turned her attention to Seattle's multicultural makeup, and the scenes of African-American, Asian and Caucasian girls talking on the playground are compelling. You can almost hear them whispering and sharing secrets.

In other paintings, African-American congregations sing heartily in church, the small, well-scrubbed and white-shirted children in the front rows clapping as they sing. Other scenes are set in beauty parlors and department stores, places where friends find themselves together, enjoying one another's company even as they go about the daily routines of their lives.

The paintings in the show are in pastel and acrylic, and Furchgott aims for naturalism.

On the playground the girls' jeans are the exact color of blue jeans, and the shadows fall exactly as though it were high noon on a sunny day. She is a colorist who obviously cares deeply about getting the color right.

Furchgott is a resident of Seattle who has shown her work around the region for the last 15 years. Her latest work has a Norman Rockwell quality about it. She is clearly trying to capture the small but important moments of everyday life and show them with good humor and dignity. And she has succeeded.

Haunting new work

Sean Hurley's new work at Battery Street Gallery is frequently mysterious - sometimes too much so. Most of the oil paintings have figures in them, though the figures are vague and drift in and out of focus.

The best painting in the bunch, however, is the combination of an impressionistic figure of a woman with a precisely rendered face.

In "Candle Woman," Hurley has matched an ephemeral woman's body with a face that looks like it might have come from a Renaissance Italian painting. The woman seems to be wearing a tiara of candles, perhaps in the Swedish Christmas tradition. The effect is haunting, like something out of dream.