The current show at Nahcotta-seller of fine art and items-echoes the aesthetic range of the sleek space, from minimalism with a controlled flair to an expressionism that's somewhat unruly but never impolite, like a freshly showered hippie. Everything on display pays homage to geometry's calming effects, and the paintings by Robert LaBranche, Sam Faix, Carol Gove, Carly Glovinski and Dion Zwirner favor cubism and abstract expressionism as well. The gallery space is partitioned off for quiet viewing, and what won't fit there runs around the walls and into the Subterranean Gallery, where various artists show, including two who embrace cutting-edge concerns, Jen Hodges and Susan Ziegler.

LaBranche's paintings just contain their brimming emotion. This new work indicates satisfied digestion of abstract expressionism, a Dionysian methodology (ably performed by Nick Nolte in New York Stories) that intensely romanticizes the physical/spiritual process of actually painting-oft inspired by actual spirits-as an unconscious journey whose raw power is felt by the viewer. Moving beyond Motherwell, LaBranche utilizes the nude and company as a catalyst for personal imagery that is confident and convincing; "Seated Figure No. 1" is excellent.

Faix's earnest mixed media interiors employ abstract expressionist abandon with deference to compulsive, Giacometti-style reworking. The point at which the artist must let go and let the painting end, however, feels random; the collage elements lack full integration and emotion is constrained. Wrestling with a more provocative subject might better activate his process. When driven by real emotion, as in the lovely "Seated Figure No. 10," Faix arrives at evocative color compositions that approach the poetic remove of post-Impressionists Bonnard and Vuillard, and quietly say more with less.

Gove's abstract collages have an appealing sense of design, but glib construction and arbitrary color makes the work decorative, too lite. Collage, as demonstrated by exemplars Schwitters and Rauschenberg, transforms materials as it integrates them into a new gestalt. This means a cigar (or here, a piece of canvas) is not just a cigar; it should read as a compelling textured color-shape at the same time it references its origins. Gove's commanding "Seated" and "Resting" prove that deeper creative engagement can achieve the visual counterpoint so integral to this art form. The energetic variables in Glovinski's work flaunt her direct, playful approach to painting while waxing enthusiastically for cubists Brague and Gris. "Persian Apartment" is particularly strong. Zwirner's simple landscapes offer luscious surfaces but ask too little of the viewer.

The paintings of Hodges and Ziegler best suit an urban setting, where the stresses and fascinations of postmodernism's iconoclasm are celebrated. Unlike the pure intent of abstract expressionism, pomo painting is ironically romantic and full of sophisticated affectation. Modernism, its sire, is a consequence of the Industrial Revolution's traumatic break with nature (dramatized in the fragmentation of cubism, which begat collage). Postmodernism is the pampered offspring, addicted to technology's variegated dimensions, so numb that nature has to be deliberately sought-by car, usually, or by killing a television.

Hodges' minimalist work's jarring surfaces puzzle and challenge, but the viewer who overcomes this is rewarded with obtuse, unsentimental whimsy. The cool beauty of "Headlights," overtly inviting, offers a vision of mellow diagonal shadow-forms in slow interplay with a large wavy texture (from a squeegee or a giant robot thumb), rendering the impassive reverie of the long-distance trucker or of suburbanite ennui. Hodges' best work involves enough layers to create mesmerizing oppositions of intensity and detachment, the natural and the mechanical, pretense and goofiness.

Ziegler also toys with insignificance, as the frivolous title "I Love You so Much I Could Burst" shows. The computer's designing hand could be more cleverly implied in her work, but Ziegler's cornucopian imagery beautifully orchestrates the ridiculous and the sublime. Aggressive undertones camouflaged in a gaudy minimalism happily accommodating austere color-field painting belied by extreme saturation, all balanced in daring asymmetry and adroit color harmony, garnished with shy rococo flourishes. No room for dessert!

Exhibitions at Nahcotta can err on the side of caution, but , as with the Summer Group Show, are always substantially considered and organized, and well worth the view.

The Summer Group Show will be at Nahcotta, 110 Congress St., Portsmouth (603-433-1705) through Aug. 17.