Re-bar
1114 Howell, 233-9873
Through March 31.

In his work as a graphic designer, Olympia's TAE WON YU exploits the power of too much information, running letters together until the words they represent are almost impossible to pick out. His paintings, which have adorned the albums of Built to Spill and covers of The Stranger, similarly combine multiple images in densely organized compositions. These pieces often hint at narrative threads, but are impossible to puzzle out completely. His lovely new suite of paintings, showing at Re-bar, are much simpler in composition, featuring pairs and small groups of people in intimate conjunctions, sometimes with large Korean words lettered over the surface. But the situations are no clearer; they now have both the clarity and incomprehensibility of dreams, with bird-headed men and fish-tailed couples and people finding themselves naked in public.