LEBANON — Last summer, 48 artists working within an array of mediums exhibited work in AVA Gallery and Art Center’s biennial juried show. From that group, the juror chose four artists to receive a small cash prize and a year to develop a solo exhibition featuring new work. The fruits of that labor go on view this Friday on the gallery’s main floor.

Some of the pieces were still being installed when I visited the gallery on Tuesday, but the work I did see, which ranged from ceramic sculpture to acrylic painting, printmaking and photography, felt like stepping into another world, one rich with mysterious forms and at times frayed and distorted by the passage of time.

That atmosphere was especially present in some of the work by North Thetford artist Jonathan Rose, whose show, “A Song for Lily,” lined the walls of AVA’s Clifford B. West Gallery. Now 84-years-old, Rose took up painting in 1993 when Meniere’s disease caused him to lose most of his hearing.

“Painting allowed me to forget it as I adjusted. Gradually I went to a new life in an entirely visual world,” Rose wrote in a shared Google Doc.

Much of Rose’s subject matter is plucked from moments in his everyday life rendered in acrylic paint that reveals the marks of wide brushstrokes.

In “Kiddie Pool,” two faceless children kneel around a small blue pool while a boy beside them, Rose’s grandson, prepares to toss a ball into the air. He’s anchored by a patch of burnt orange under his sneakers, but the other two children float, like apparitions, or imaginary friends, in the opaque expanse of gold paint that covers most of the painting. 

“This is for family and warmth and summer,” said Rose of the metallic background. But there’s also a haunting quality to the abstract setting, as if the children are figures from a long-ago memory. 

The same pair, or a similar one, pops up again in “Future,” where, standing in a vast yellow field, they gaze at a long tongue of road that snakes toward a ridge of blue-gray mountains far in the distance. Brushing arms, and shouldering matching green backpacks, they appear as intrepid travelers, fortified by each other’s presence. 

There’s a similar scene, in “Sunday Morning,” in which the two figures, this time rendered in pale pink and blue, linger at the end of a garden walkway while a faceless adult watches from the doorway of a salmon-colored house, their path blocked by a turquoise chair.

Delicate pinks and sage greens, which appear often in Rose’s show, help to create the works’ dreamy atmosphere. That palette, and sense of the otherworldly, is mirrored in the shimmering folds of Dan Falby’s ceramic sculptures in his show “Tear in the Fabric,” which faces Rose’s work on the other side of the room. 

Falby, who lives in Holderness, N.H., allows gravity to shape the ripples in the large sheets of clay, which he then sprays with glazes that seem to change color with the shifting light in the room. The result is a collection of hypnotic forms, seemingly soft to the touch yet somehow solid and breakable. 

The undulating folds in “Crevasse,” a diamond-shaped wall-hanging, resembles the aerial view of a mountain range from an alien planet awash in the fading colors of a sunset, while the half-moon curve of “Arch,” which seemingly stands on its dainty edges, is like some kind of mysterious artifact from a world where the laws of gravity don’t apply.

Around the corner, in the E.N Wennberg Gallery, Sarah Koff’s display of woodblock prints of tall trees and forest creatures creates a sense of groundedness. Koff, who lives in Exeter, N.H., uses her show, “Object Permanence,” to illustrate humans’ threat to the natural environment. In “Pesticide Effects,” the chemical structure for DDT, a notorious pesticide, is overlaid on a print of two eagles hovering protectively around a nest of eggs. Unlike Rose and Falby’s work, which inches into the realm of the imaginative, Koff’s show is rooted, decidedly so, in our present reality.

The photographs of Susan Lirakis, the fourth winner, walk a line between between the mystical and the real. Based in Center Sandwich, N.H., Lirakis manipulates black and white photographs, some made years ago, to explore the nature of memory. In some images, the figures are almost completely blurred, like a fleeting shadow or ghost. Like much of the work in the four solo shows, they appear as a kind of portal inviting the viewer to abandon their familiar reality, at least for a while.

The four solo exhibitions are on view beginning on Friday, July 11. The artists will be present at an opening reception at 5 to 7 p.m. that evening. The shows, which will be up through Saturday, Aug. 9, are free and open to the public. Falby will also be leading an abstract ceramic workshop on abstract ceramic sculpture from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 26. For more information about the shows and workshop, visit avagallery.org.

Last weekend was a quiet one when it came to arts programming, what with all the parades and fireworks. This week is quite the opposite, with arts and literature events scheduled across Upper Valley towns. Here’s a sampler:

A king and an orphan

Parish Players’ three-weekend run of “King Lear,” Shakespeare’s tragedy about a mad king and his three daughters, opens this Thursday at the Eclipse Grange Theatre in Thetford. The play marks Randolph resident Fergus Ryan’s first time directing, with the exception of a couple virtual shows during the coronavirus pandemic. For tickets ($15-$25) and more information, visit parishplayers.org.

In Randolph, Chandler Center for the Arts’ summer youth production of “Oliver!” opens this Friday. Backed by a live orchestra, more than 40 young performers will bring to life Lionel Bart’s musical based on Charles Dickens’ novel “Oliver Twist” about the misadventures of an orphan scraping by in Victorian London. For tickets ($10-$25; free for children age 6 and under) and more information, visit chandler-arts.org.

Living language in Canaan

The 37th season of the annual literary readings at the historic Meetinghouse in Canaan begins this Thursday at 7 p.m. The three-week series features readings of new work by poets, nonfiction and fiction writers such as Carlene Kucharczyk, who recently won the University of Massachusetts Press’ Juniper Prize for her poetry collection, “Strange Hymn.”

Refreshments will include a spread of “unpretentiously magnificent” baked goods, with sales supporting the Canaan Town Library, according to the Meetinghouse Readings website. Admission to the readings is free and open to the public (except toddlers). For more information, visit meetinghousereadings.wordpress.com.

Songs on a Saturday

The daylong Sharon Music Festival kicks off at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the village green. Musical acts include electric jazz piano group GRG Trio and Royalton native and indie pop songwriter Ali T. Food vendors and artisan stalls will be on site throughout the festival, which is free and open to the public. For more information, visit sevenstars.org.

Marion Umpleby can be reached at mumpleby@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.

CORRECTION: Parish Players’ production of “King Lear” runs for three weekends, from July 10 through July 27. A previous version of this story provided an inaccurate length for the show’s run.