Kehler Liddell Decks The Walls

Penrhyn Cook’s series of photographs, Holiday Reflections, are absorbing enough in their own right. Colorful and festive, the images are just askew enough to warrant a closer look. Are we looking at double exposures? What do we make of the giant fruit and a rainbow on a city block? In the context of Kehler Liddell Gallery’s annual holiday show — titled ​“Deck the Walls” and running at the Westville space through Dec. 24 — the title of Cook’s series earns itself a double twist, as the works of fellow gallery members on the opposite walls are reflected in the photos’ glassy surfaces. Images layer on images, an apt depiction of the show as a whole, in which all the gallery members play a part.

Sean P. Gallagher’s series of studies of the foliage turning on trees — quite appropriate for New England, and for Westville in particular, thanks to West Rock Park — keeps the spark of fall alive as the days get shorter and colder. The images are also notable for being mounted a few inches off the wall. The shadows cast by the piece create the suggestion of tree trunks for the leaves in the frame to crown.

Gar Waterman’s sculptures often follow the contours of shapes from the natural world, often aquatic creatures. For his entry into this show, he comes to dry land, but the smoothness of his seed shapes is oceanic enough that it feels almost like a nod to evolution, a reminder that everything living has an ancestor in the sea.

In a similar vein, Mary R. Burke’s ghostly paintings are evocative of landscapes while also remaining just this side of abstract, a study of form rather than a representation of a place. Abstract pieces have a strong presence in the show overall, from Robert Bienstock’s buzzing lines to Eddie Hall’s sharp, geometric pieces.

But there’s plenty of representational art and photography as well. Frank Bruckmann’s West River View, Spring is recognizable to anyone familiar with that place, and captures the weight of the atmosphere at that time of year as well. Hank Paper’s photographs of Israel in more peaceful times take on additional resonance with the grim news from there now. Marjorie Wolfe’s landscape photograph of Reynisfjara, a black-pebble beach in Iceland, stuns in its otherworldliness. In keeping with the holidays, ​“Deck the Walls” makes sure there’s something for everyone.

“Deck the Walls” runs at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., through Dec.24. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.