Michelle Hegyi’s “Do You Remember the Shape of Trees…” at the WSG Gallery continues this local artist’s consolidation of the digital signature she’s been crafting through the last decade.

Hegyi’s work lies in mid-20th century post-painterly abstraction, where visual expression matches painterly texture. Working in relatively large scales through dramatic dips and swirls, Hegyi creates tension in her art through the repetitive use of her visual motifs.

As Hegyi said in her 2004 WSG “Spaces of Encounter” gallery statement, she sketches her compositions on her computer program using a tablet and software designed to “simulate natural brushstrokes” that are then overlaid with pigmented ink “color over color” until her paintings “grow and change” into their final design on heavyweight rag paper.

Each of the works in this exhibit — like Hegyi’s art in the past — condenses a series of overlapping perspectives. Hegyi subtly varies the tone of her work through a consistent visual vocabulary and complimentary chromaticity.

So what is there new to be found in this compact handful of beeswax, acrylic, and pigment ink on Japanese paper?

The simplest answer comes from Hegyi herself in her current gallery statement: “They (the artworks) reference the disappearance of memory using translucency, trees, leaves, geometric abstraction, and architectural elements.”

These paintings' deft casting of elemental structure through offhanded reference of leaves and trees is consistently coupled with the abstract laying of color fields to create something akin to recollected dreamscapes.

The key element of reminiscence (or dreams), of course, is that they rarely refer to their subject matter directly. This indirect vocabulary makes Hegyi’s moody art consistent in its appearance.

For example, the first numbered work in the series; “Do You Remember the Shape of Trees…, No. 1” features a masterly mottled bluish and green background that’s superseded by a midground series of blue-tinged vertical bars upon which has been added a small series of foreground horizontal gray lines; a larger blue square; a random diagonal line; and a single curvilinear stroke that looks like a falling tree leaf. The work is furiously expressive on one level yet also tightly structured at another.

“Do You Remember the Shape of Trees…, No. 6,”on the other hand, finds Hegyi varying both the line and the field of her composition. This painting is divided horizontally by a third on top (where a series of background brown scrubs has been overlaid with a green horizontal rectangle) above a bright yellow color field on which a foreground series of budding scrubs has been delicately drawn with tight precision. It is, oddly enough, expansive and compactly rendered at the same time.

The work that sums up Hegyi’s intent in this series is “Do You Remember the Shape of Trees…, No. 8” where there is a color field reminiscent of “No. 6” with the disciplined vocabulary of “No. 1.” In this instance, Hegyi has a blue field evocative of the first-generation abstractionists situated within a larger blue color field where her diagonal foreground swipe is set next to another falling leaf. A curvilinear design in the work’s bottom-right corner balances these elements. And the work indeed has the translucency, leaves, geometric abstraction, and architectural elements essential to the series.

“Do You Remember the Shape of Trees…, No. 8” is a hazy blue marvel whose undulating grounds jostle the viewer’s eye with an otherworldly ambiance that’s both comforting and unsettling.

“Michelle Hegyi: Do You Remember the Shape of Trees…” will continue through September 5 at WSG Gallery, 306 S. Main St. Gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m., Tuesday-Wednesday; noon to 10 p.m., Thursday-Saturday; and noon to 5 p.m., Sunday. For information, call 734-761-2287.