“SIDE ORDER”: This work by Larry Mitnick is featured in “Imagining Space,” his dual exhibition with Heather Barros, on view through May 2 at the Artists’ Gallery in Lambertville.

Heather Barros and Larry Mitnick’s joint exhibition, “Imagining Space,” is on view at the Artists’ Gallery in Lambertville through May 2.

According to the artists, Imagining space is different from imagining spaces. Barros and Mitnick understand that “spaces” are constrained by boundaries. A meadow may be circumscribed by a row of trees, and a room by its walls. In imagining “space” these two artists seek to invert the perspective. Both ponder space independent of the space’s periphery. They use forms we understand to prescribe a space we may not. That space can be vast. That space can be twisted; it can be atmospheric. So, for these artists and in very different ways, the path through space leads to abstraction.

Barros imagines space in paintings of interiors and landscapes. She understands that spatial orientation requires an anchor point. She seemingly provides these for viewers, but upon close inspection her anchors are often unmoored. She may offer a window through which one can see, but the view is empty. If not bare canvas, the paint has been wiped to near-translucency. Detail is sacrificed, information is lost, but volume survives. Other times it is unclear if one is looking at or through water, through fog, or at sheer emptiness.

“Viewers don’t quite know where they stand,” Barros says of this work. “But like moths attracted to light, I hope to lure their gaze to a certain distance. They may be looking at paint, but I want them to see and imagine space.”

Mitnick’s paintings are more overtly abstract. He overlays shapes and colors upon one another to create textured compositions with little correlation to the world we normally perceive. Viewers project upon these works their own imagined sense of space. They see layered elements. Color, value, and varying degrees of transparency are employed to suggest depth. Acknowledgment of depth is this artist’s lure. His hook, what captivates the viewer, is an enigma in its distillation. Exactly which shape is in front of what? How can a color be in front of one element and not behind another? These paintings pose uneasy questions. Their beauty is that they assert their own sense of balance and order.

The Artists’ Gallery is located at 18 Bridge Street, Lambertville, with gallery hours on Thursday through Sunday, 11  a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit lambertvillearts.com, or call (609) 397-4588.