Portland-based artist Ralph Pugay paints scenarios that are perplexingly surreal and often border on political incorrectness. Humorous at first glance, one discovers on closer view a darker undercurrent that questions established notions of morality. Pugay thinks of his works as allegorical puzzles for our contemporary times and describes the tableaux as âabsurd situational narratives, constructed through the melding of incongruous symbols and ideas, where the mundane and fantastic converge.â Motivated in part by anxiety in a world of uncertainty and absurdity and informed by the culture of video games, his mind-bending scenarios provide a brief moment of comic relief.