ย“I was looking for anything with a sinister undercurrent,ย” says Volker Eisele, curator of ย“Red Velvet.ย” The title of the exhibit is a take on Blue Velvet, David Lynchย’s 1986 film depicting drugs and depravity lurking beneath a small-town faรงade. While the group show doesnย’t offer anything as disturbing as an amyl nitrite-huffing Dennis Hopper slapping around Isabella Rossellini while screaming, ย“Mommy, mommy, baby wants to fuck!ย” it does offer some cleverly ominous takes on domestic life.

John Hartley paints hyperrealistic toy soldiers with prosthetics or missing limbs, an unsettling intermingling of real war and play war. Tim Stokesย’s two installations feature all the items found in a typical room of a house (oneย’s a bathroom, the other a dining area) packed into a tiny space and surrounded by flashing red lights. ย“The effect is that it all looks like itย’s about to explode,ย” says Eisele. Nancy Lambย’s paintings of suburban cocktail parties have a Norman Rockwell look but the perspectives are skewed, with the focus on the floor, cutting subjectsย’ heads out of the picture. ย“Thereย’s a kind of vertigo to them,ย” says Eisele. ย“Itย’s like [the subjects] are falling out of their own world.ย”

Other work in show, sponsored by the Rudolph Projects ArtScan Gallery and happening at FotoFest during the photography hubย’s off-season, includes Whitney Rileyย’s paintings of supermodels cutting celery and baking cookies, Thedra Culler-Ledfordย’s kimonos made with pornographic fabric, and Houston Press writer Kelly Klaasmeyerย’s oversize diaper and home pregnancy-test boxes. Well, there are times when a pregnancy test is as intimidating as a drug-crazed psychopath who beats and rapes people to Roy Orbison songs.

This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2007.