The Silver Spring Penguin

Photo: "Humility of Acceptance" by South Silver Spring's Tom Block.

The svelte Asian woman wandered around the dimly lit warehouse turned gallery, clutching a soda can and glancing at art hung on the cinderblock walls. She smiled politely, like a lost tourist.

“This is nice,” she said. “But what is it?”

It is “X”, what its promoter bills as a “21st century live-art happening”, though it usually happens at BeBar in The District’s Shaw neighborhood. Except Friday night, it was prerecorded and replayed in Fenton Village.

In a nutshell, the monthly events in Shaw bring together digital-music makers, graphic illustrators and traditional artists who simultaneously work on separate projects, yet somehow draw on each other’s creative energies. It’s how wind, water and lightening create the perfect storm.

But where the Shaw events are storms in action, the Silver Spring show — at Space 88 on Mayor Lane — is the result of those creative whirlwinds. The completed paintings, collages and videos wring out the dizzying element of time, leaving snapshots of howling wind, pelting rain and ferocious lightening.

The “X” exhibit is free and open to the public. Call (301) 358-3639 for hours.

Photos by J. Deseo/SSP.