While the name might promise simple sweetness and pleasantries, the exhibit You Catch More Flies with Honey…, now on display at Carroll Square Gallery, is not simple or superficial. Curated by Hemphill Fine Arts, the exhibit features five artists in the first annual OPTIMA exhibition, which showcases artists whose works have natural connections and form dynamic relationships when viewed together.

Bright color infuses the gallery as each artist uses a cheerful color palette to hide complex meaning and subject matter. This is most prevalent in the mixed media canvases by Isabel Manalo. At first her compositions seem to form uncoordinated landscapes. Upon closer inspection, familiar natural forms start to emerge. You can tell that each blob of color or bright blown ink spot is very deliberate and makes her compositions tight, drawing your eye easily around the canvas. The joyful colors and pretty patterns clash with the dark subject matter of works named Death March (pictured) and After Chernobyl.

The exhibit also plays with scale, as Denise Tassin’s miniatures snake through the floor space of the gallery providing an interesting contrast to the large pieces displayed on the walls. Her work is intimate and invites you close to consider its minute details. In Shakers, three small light bulb type globes are centered in the middle of green felt or Astroturf. Each globe contains miniature figures reminiscent of worry dolls but better defined. The people are dressed in suits and ties and business attire. Each globe is filled with different amounts of people. It is easiest to view the one with the least amount of mini-people, while the one filled half way with the miniature people, feels very claustrophobic.