On first glance, it was hard to say what was depicted in these glossy black photographs. They might be pictures of extremely complex devices, perhaps the kind used in scientific experiments, or they could be of fine machine parts or the dissected limbs of an insect under a microscope. These photos were puzzling in a way that made them uncanny, and like all uncanny things, they triggered curiosity and repulsion at once: Did you really want to know what these images show? It could be something unpleasant.

But yes, you wanted to know. The subjects are mannequins that Louisa Clement photographed with

The six paintings in Kamilla Bischof’s exhibition “Cosmetic Songs” were accompanied by a story. And the works themselves tell multilayered stories, too. Carried by a mercurial and ebullient figuration, they are peopled by various gods, humans, and animals, as well as by siren-like hybrids and fantastical creatures. It is fitting that the short press release, penned by the artist, reads like an excerpt from a novel: Oneiric and picturesque, it’s nothing like the boilerplate you usually get. You could almost think of it as another painting that just happens to have taken the form of writing. A