Jamie Wyeth: ‘Unsettled’ @ Frye Art Museum

You’d be forgiven for feeling a little disoriented upon stepping into “Unsettled,” painter Jamie Wyeth’s new show at the Frye.

First, there’s the inevitable name-check: “Which Wyeth is this again?” — A fair question, given that Jamie’s father (Andrew Wyeth) and grandfather (N.C. Wyeth) were both celebrated artists. But a touch of such confusion feels fitting for an exhibition devoted to the uncanny. Wyeth’s subjects often seem not quite of this world, and the ominous mood of his compositions provides another reason you might find yourself on unsteady footing.

“Unsettled” includes nearly 50 works, enough that you can wander from room to room at the Frye and keep discovering new levels of strangeness. To be clear, Wyeth’s paintings here are not gruesome (with one or two small exceptions) — you could probably take your mom to this show. Where he excels is creating a sense of unease that you can’t quite pinpoint: the idyllic island cottage viewed from icy waters, the proud little boy commanding a miniature inferno, a man calling out (in delight? in fright?) from behind a tree. The creatures in his paintings seem like messengers from another world, one that would confuse all our categories.

Throughout, the depictions of light and shadow call to mind those moments when the world seems somehow extra-ordinary. In “The Faune,” ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev glows as a satyr-like mythological creature while the woods sink behind him in a viridescent gloom. In “Julia on the Swing,” a tree seems to blur with movement above almost supernaturally chartreuse grass. Plumes of red trees billow above ominous squash in “Hill Girt Farm,” inspired by an extremely creepy dream Wyeth once had. The dense pigments somehow illuminate the psychologically charged corners of rural life.

These are portraits of a world just slightly tilted, where everyday scenes dissolve into myth, memory and something stranger still. The show invites you to linger in this disquiet — long enough, perhaps, to feel right at home in the unease.