Kitty Klaidman

Inspired by sojourns in Europe and Canada, Kitty Klaidman paints exuberant landscapes, from impressionistic to abstract. But their brightness is shadowed by some of the earliest work in “A 30 Year Survey,” the local artist’s retrospective at Marsha Mateyka Gallery. Made between 1989 and 1991, the pictures recall Klaidman’s childhood in what is now Slovakia, where she and her family hid from the Nazis.

Included are views into the forest and down from a crawl-space hideout in her family home. They’re paired with photo-derived pieces that show the actual places or incorporate portraits of departed family members. The woodland scenes aren’t especially ominous, but a black-and-white one effectively conveys a young girl‘s fear.

In summertime Normandy, Klaidman found beguiling light and abandoned World War II material, left in the water as a sort of monument. Acrylic-wash close-ups of colorfully mottled Roman walls also evoke the past, while pointing the artist toward a freer style that flowered in the intricately patterned “Salt Spring Islands” paintings and drawings of the past six years. The most recent works are handsome abstractions, segmented into three or four squares. Untitled, their gemlike facets suggest layers of history.