The Matthew Weinstein exhibit opens Sept. 21 with a lecture by the artist at 4 p.m. followed by a reception at 5. The show will continue in the gallery's first floor exhibition area through Nov. 7.

Matthew Weinstein's paintings have been called as "aggressively vulgar and obnoxiously vibrant as a Grand Guignol performance." Another critic said they capture a state of "pathological ecstasy." Critic Jerry Saltz called his compositions "ungainly and undigested," adding that "there's an eager, adolescent skull-'n'-crossbones side to the work that makes it seem particularly male."

Weinstein's assault on modernist notions of the "pure" and the "ideal" generally takes the form of a raucous, garish, sometimes-kinky or poetic marriage of disparate images from anatomy, biker culture, Rimbaud and pop.

This solo exhibition traces the development of the artist's peculiar and startling personal iconography over a five-year period. Look for his exploration of cell-like surreal organic forms and his manipulation of the painting itself as a metaphor for the body.

He often cuts into his paintings, sometimes sewing them back together to produce a scarred canvas-skin surface. In other cases, the cuts remain open to reveal the wooden skeleton across which the canvas is stretched. He uses what he calls synthetic "non-art" colors to discourage a literal reading of the painting as a torn and reassembled human form. Others feature ungainly, undigested images produced in a wildly exuberant adolescent style.

Weinstein himself calls his oeuvre one that "centers itself upon the corporeal research of pleasure" and upon the psychological or physical obstacles experienced during that journey.

The Lydia Dona show opens in the first floor gallery Thursday, Nov. 16 with a 4 p.m. public lecture by the artist followed by a reception at 5 p.m. It continues through Dec. 22.

The gallery also presents a collaborative dual-site exhibition with Buffalo's Big Orbit Gallery featuring another artist who casts a peculiar eye to the modernist past. He is the critically applauded Western New York artist and poet Alfonso Volo, whose show began Aug. 31 and will run concurrently with the Weinstein exhibit through Nov. 5 in the gallery's second floor exhibition space.

Also on the gallery's fall schedule:

John Lekay's sculptural installation "Delires de L'ange Neutre, which opened Aug. 31, continues to Sept. 17. A lecture by Lekay on Sept. 14 at 4 p.m. will be followed by a reception. Both events take place in the first floor gallery.

An Oct. 21 slide lecture by pioneering American artist Adrian Piper will take place in the Center for the Arts Screening Room at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a public reception.

The university's annual Graduate Student Show runs Nov. 16 through Dec. 13 in the second floor gallery. It opens with a reception from 5-7 p.m. on Nov. 16 and will feature work in sculpture, illustration, photography, painting, printmaking, computer art and communication design.

The Lightwell Gallery will continue its long-term exhibition of site-specific construction, "Red Vertical" by Simon Unger, through Dec. 31.

The University Gallery is free and open to the public. Hours are 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.