In Debra Gavant Swan’s paintings, collages, and reliefs, art and religion are more often carnival sideshows than windows opening onto some truth. 25¢ A Toss, 1988, a canvas pierced by a small window that reveals a grinning mouth and nose, shows us this carnival’s barker most directly. He appears in some sculptures as a three-dimensional mannequin who looks like a cross between the wooden figure-models used by drawing students and the faceless creatures in the paintings of Mark Kostabi. In Under the Circumstances, 1987, this character hides beneath a table bearing a collection of fruit and bottles