Could there be a touch of irony in the title Stella Ebner gave to the new screenprints inspired by her hometown of Elk River, Minn.?

"Folks, It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This," she called the show at Groveland Gallery's Annex near downtown Minneapolis. And there are her novel vignettes of Elk River's city council, the karate school, a fiesta, the Chinese restaurant, the used-car lot, the cemetery -- mundane moments beautifully distilled into simple, familiar scenes infused with just the faintest whiff of gentle melancholy and wry humor.

No, most likely Ebner picked that glad-handing Rotarian title because at heart she agrees that when it comes to the fundamentals, life really is pretty good in Elk River, a northwestern Twin Cities suburb at the confluence the Elk and Mississippi rivers. Ebner grew up there in the last decades of the 20th century, graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1998 and then went to graduate school at the Rhode Island School of Art and Design. She teaches drawing and printmaking at the University of California in Davis, but it's clear that she left her heart in Elk River.

She doesn't primp up the town by offering picture-postcard views or nostalgic drive-bys of the local high school. Instead, she pokes into daily life, dropping by City Hall to depict "Mr. Vang Goes Before City Council," a vignette in aqua of a small man in an over-large suit quaking before a half-circle of distant, spotlit dignitaries; checks out the bored moms watching their kids at karate practice, and spies a lonely looking waitress waiting for customers at a "Fiesta" table. Even the swans that winter in the warm waters around the town's power plant get their portraits done, as do the perky sprinklers that water the cemetery's brown lawn.

Ebner has an extraordinarily keen eye for the mundane incidents and common stuff of daily life and a rare ability to separate the essence from the clutter. Executed in broad areas of flat color, her prints are marvels of economy and deft layering. Note especially the nine-piece "Car Lot Suite," which depicts an apocalyptic Midwestern sunset flaming behind a car lot on Hwy. 101. All the images are the same except for subtle textures in the ink and different messages in the billboard that the lot owner apparently uses on alternate days to promote Jesus, Freedom and Great Gas Mileage. Hey, as a slice of Americana, it doesn't get any better than this.

Landscape of Change

Nor are there more beautiful Minnesota vistas than those Tom Maakestad evokes in his lush new show, "Landscape of Change," in Groveland's main gallery. One measure of the show's appeal is the proliferation of red "sold" dots beside nearly half of the 27 images. Priced between $600 and $2,900, most sold in a flurry of excitement on opening night, but sales have remained steady and several pieces are even now on loan to prospective buyers. Cheering news in recessionary times.

Maakestad, who grew up near Northfield and lives in Marine on St. Croix, has studied the nearby landscapes for years, perfecting his ability to translate vast skies, crop-quilted valleys and wooded hills into evocative designs in oil pastel and paint. There's an appropriately autumnal flavor to the current show, expressed through a sharper, brighter palette of lemony yellow, peach and teal accented with violet and plum. Such hues are not abundant in Midwestern vistas, and Maakestad has used them judiciously to animate the deep green shadows along a ditch or to suggest sunlight dappling a crown of amber leaves. He divides foreground and distance into zones of differing hues, and runs ribbons of road toward low horizons that are often topped with clear blue skies and billowing clouds.

Maakestad is known for his work in pastel, a chalky oil-based material that has a rich color range and lends a seductively velvety texture to his work. Here he ventures into oil paint also, most successfully in three "St. Croix Waterscapes" that catch the shimmer of late afternoon light on the river's dappled surface, gleaming silver between darkening banks. Breaking with his usual preference for smooth-skinned paintings, he has dashed the water with streaks of paint, animated the shadows with texture, and let slips of pigment curl and bead along the edges of the images. Such touches of the hand pull the paintings back from the cloying brink of prettiness and give them the grit and breath of life. If you didn't live here, you'd never believe the world really is so grand and lovely. Bravo!

Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431