At a distance from Cindy Wright’s paintings, minute details snap into focus, the kind of details only visible in enlarged photographs. But in talking to Cindy Wright, she not only mentions Chuck Close but also Lucian Freud, whose observations are better known as psychological than photographic. Up close to Wright’s paintings, her interest in expressive brushwork becomes visible.

Wright paints an updated version of traditional Dutch and Flemish still lifes, one balanced between photography and painting, as well as between clinical detachment and emotional involvement. Her subject matter is part of a long tradition of vanitas paintings, reminders of the transience and fragility of life, though her interpretations are unmistakably contemporary, taking advantage of the possibilities of her digital camera to capture and enlarge, for example, the broken filaments of a spider’s web or a cube made out of bacon. Cindy Wright’s latest exhibition is at Mark Moore Gallery in Culver City, California.