“My paintings have been called ‘hillbilly postmodernism’,” said artist Brett De Palma with a laugh. “In my imagery, nature rules in every way possible.”

De Palma was responding to a question put to him by Catskill Art Space Executive Director Sally Wright during the artists’ talk at the opening, on Aug. 5, of the gallery’s current exhibition. De Palma’s unstretched canvases, some massive in scale, contain a cacophony of cartoonish characters, trains, buildings, signs and symbols and other motifs, all interacting to create a frenetic narrative. “I’m a storyteller,” De Plama said. “I let the work tell me what to do.”

Work by sculptor and painter Judy Glantzman occupies the middle gallery space on CAS’s first floor. Of her whimsical portrait busts she said, “I think they’re actual beings when I suddenly become aware of them while working in the studio. They seem like real people!”

To enhance the expressiveness of the busts, Glantzman has created a series of hand sculptures that can be can be positioned in pairs around one or another of the heads to amplify facial expressions and moods.

“There’s more than a little humor in these pieces,” Glantzman said. “I like to think of them as psychological self-portraits.”

The show also features a number of Glantzman’s paintings, and like her sculptures, they portray faces and hands. Their imagery is raw and deceptively primitive, evoking the crayon iconography of a child, but they also have a density that speaks of something deeper. “They’re more serious,” said Glantzman. “I started them 25 years ago, and I’ve recently been reworking them.”

R.M. Fisher is the third artist whose work is on display in the current exhibit. His pieces, wildly creative sculptures, are, as he said, “seductive visually while having real functionality.” Their utility is as lamps, lights that can be seen in the gallery windows after hours. “They’re magnificent when seen at night!” Wright commented. Fisher’s work takes inspiration from semiotics, the study of signs.

The exhibit continues through the end of the month. For more information and gallery hours, visit catskillartspace.org.