His colors can be vivid—a straw-yellow blonde, glowing baby-blue crescents on a woman's dress.

The faces have realism but their expressions—children In painting titled "Kinship," for example—register trepidation, wariness and hostility.

The look is not quite comic-book style, but close.

Beck's social gatherings are something else altogether. He's party spoiler, painting occasions that should be fun but aren't. His women carry bows and arrows like modern-day Dianas. In the painting titled "It's a Gift," men sing in an artist's studio, while outside the windows a city is burning.

There's a frightening surreal quality In some of Beck's work. In some of his pictures, figures seem to be coming out of the paintings to join the living.