Verdant Refuge

— Obi Kaufman

I'm pretty sure I'm in love with Jenn Shifflet.

Okay, maybe I am in love with her paintings — it's hard to know the difference. She is a painter's painter. The depth, mystery, and ambience she attains in her multimedia compositions brings me to levels of arresting swoon that I reserve for a bunch of things other than art. Her paintings are like a good story, or a great video game, or, even more than that, a beautiful world- saving formula of aesthetic evaluation that should not be ignored by the culture at large.

Get yourself down to Chandra Cerrito Contemporary (480 23rd St., Oakland) before the show ends on Mar. 30, and check out the impressively large collection of paintings on display in her second solo show there — a show so very aptly titled Verdant Refuge.

— Obi Kaufman