Naming an exhibition “Memories and Dreams” is bound to create a sense of ambiguity: Should one expect canvases painted in hazy dream-like blues? A display of Turner-like reproductions? The artwork of Shraga Weil, recently exhibited at the Pucker Gallery, deals with a seemingly incoherent choice of subject matter, but presents ambiguities that urge for interpretation.

Rams, fires and branches are usually not the subjects one associates with visual art, yet Weil is able to combine these diverse subjects through his exceptional use of color and texture.

Weil’s colors and textures may put other artists to shame—his vibrant colors become all the more apparent when placed next to Joseph Ablow’s exhibit, also recently being shown at the Pucker Gallery. While the former pulses with energy, the latter appears dull and tepid by comparison.

Explaining his latest works as inspiration from the Jewish secular culture and tradition, Weil may easily mislead the viewer into seeing these paintings solely as celebratory art. Entering the exhibit, the viewer is immediately confronted by the cheerful oranges, reds, cinnamons and golds that dominate almost all of his paintings. The bright colors of the paintings create a startling contrast against the gallery’s white walls.

In one of the more memorable works, titled “From the Sources,” Weil paints a pair of hands holding a paint brush. The range of oranges in this canvas alone is impressive: While the background is painted loosely in a happy mango orange, the shade gradually merges into the russet-orange of the hands, and finally to a lemony yellow evoking the images of autumn leaves. While much of the paint is loosely layered, a thin layer of pastel blues and khaki greens can be identified underneath the intense oranges. These blues and greens are made visible through the artist’s manipulation of paint with a palette knife.

Weil painstakingly outlines these hands with charcoal rather than with loose oil paints. These lines of charcoal are so soft, however, that the distinction between oil paints and charcoal is difficult to identify. This rich use of texture, coupled with the swirling blends of oranges and yellows, creates an effect that is both stunning yet soothing.

A similar soothing sense of color continues throughout the exhibit, and the viewer may well blissfully ponder Weil’s celebration of cultural heritage before realizing the juxtaposition between subject matter and color. In the “Memories and Dreams” catalogue, Weil constantly asserts his “atheistic philosophy,” where he distinctly separates culture from religion and states that he has no interest in religious ritual or faith.