With their mix of the lugubrious and the festive, the paintings in "Ambiguous," Jeff "Weirdo" Jacobson's new show at Vermillion, affect their viewers in a most unusual way. Take "Soulless," a portrait (shown above) of a pale, tattooed young man solemnly offering the viewer a pomegranate. Tiny candy-colored triangles fleck his surroundings, while a tangle of internal organs, tethered by an umbilical cord to his right shoulder, floats indecisively behind him. What to make of the way this confetti-sprinkled gloom entangles harlequin-bright artifice with dark anatomical precision? Hard to say, but it's in good company — especially with a small item titled "The Rubicon" that's nothing but an eye opened wide in alarm. But, yikes, what an eye!

4 p.m.-midnight Tuesday-Thursday and Sundays, 4 p.m.-1 a.m. Friday-Saturday, through July 7, Vermillion Gallery, 1508 11th Ave., Seattle; free (206-709-9797 or www.vermillionseattle.com; Jacobson's website: www.weirdocult.com).

Michael Upchurch: mupchurch@seattletimes.com