IN THE 1979 HIT SONG Dreaming, Debbie Harry of Blondie melodiously reminded listeners, “Dreaming is free.” The phrase was quixotic yet relevant in a decade that began amid the Vietnam War, saw oil crises and the resignation of Nixon, and ended with the Iran hostage crisis. For adults of the 1970s, the dream world provided a needed respite from the social, political and economic troubles of the day. Twenty-six years later, the U.S. is rooted in the Iraq war, there is talk of another energy crisis, turmoil continues in the Middle East, and the word “impeachment” has crossed the lips of many a liberal, especially in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Fear not, however, dreaming is still free and, thanks to SPACES, you can escape via the reveries of the 28 artists in the Beautiful Dreamer exhibition.

The exhibition displays a broad interpretation of the theme, and the gallery is packed with an array of works in varying media. However, paintings and wall works dominate the show, and they range from dazzlingly jaw-dropping to patently feeble. Craig Kucia’s and then you told me you couldn’t believe life could exist in such an excruciatingly beautiful manner without breaking your ears exemplifies the former, as the artist defies the flatness of the canvas by “sculpting” imagery from paint. A spherical beehive-like form dominates the picture, along with tree branches, leaves, flowers and foliage in strikingly vivid colors. Kucia’s hues are Technicolor-dreamy; this, coupled with several insects sculpted from oil paint, including a gorgeously wrought monarch butterfly, creates an ethereal scene out of a fantastic sci-fi meets nature movie.

Equally extraordinary is Kim Keever’s Summer: Blue, Yellow and Gray. With its subtle, golden light and murky tones, the work is reminiscent of the paintings of the early-19th-century British landscape painter JMW Turner. Yet Keever’s large-scale work is a photograph, not a painting. This reality gives the work a mystical quality, especially when viewed from a distance; it is as if the artist alchemically transformed a Turner painting into a Chromogenic photo print.

Amy Chaiklin’s work, conversely, ineffectually reflects the exhibition theme with sophomoric imagery and tactless treatment of the painting surface. Chaiklin’s Golden Ladder depicts three fairies buzzing about a yellow, or “golden,” tree-ladder, anthropomorphized with human feet. The fairies are clumsily rendered against a field of dark red. In her artist statement, Chaiklin writes, “ My paintings are pure, unavoidably hypnotic, and provoke us to use the fullness of our imaginations to expand the limits of our day-to-day experiences.” Chaiklin’s inept painting technique, straight-out-of-the-tube paint, and clumsy imagery make even the most mundane everyday scenes seem interesting by comparison.

The dream world goes baroque in Tara Giannini and Katherine Daniels’ works. Giannini’s Siren Song, reminiscent of a miniature stage set, features a golden cherub riding a swan, along with a myriad of taxidermied animals and insects. The piece melds the kitschy glitziness of faux jewels, glitter and iridescent beads with the preserved bodies of fauna, evoking the Western art tradition of the vanitas painting, which centered on the ephemeral nature of the body and worldly possessions. Daniels’ 21 Wall Blossoms is visually stunning, as the artist weaves and connects 21 chaotically exquisite floral blossoms from colorful plastic beads, filling a large wall with a quilt-like pattern.

Maureen Connor’s video installation, Narrow Escape, takes apart U.S. society’s delusional fixation on the shape and size of women’s bodies. Three monitors, incorporated into a Directoire- style wardrobe, depict a group of women squeezing through narrow doorways and playing musical chairs with narrow-seated chairs that farcically crumble under the weight of the women’s trim bodies. One by one, as the chairs crumble, the women gather around and feast off of a multi-tiered serving dish laden with fruit, candy and pastries. The dreamlike quality of the video is undermined by the viewer’s corporal reality, as it is housed in a room comprised of the same chairs, narrow door and elegant paneling. In this frame, we are made cognizant of our own participation in the insidious beauty myth.

While Beautiful Dreamer is somewhat uneven, the show contains more hits than misses. It is a timely exhibition, and a welcome reprieve from current economic and political hardships. So, as Debbie Harry sang, “Dream dream, even for a little while; Dream dream, filling up an idle hour; Fade away, radiate.”