Fully absorbing the art by Claude Carone demands experiencing its physical presence. Photos flatten the space, smooth-out the texture and remove the air, but in person, the layers of collaged materials become immediately palpable. Still, don’t just go, take a quick scan, note the fine craftsmanship and intriguing formal elements, and leave. Instead, look – or as the show’s title, Listen Carefully, suggests, “listen.” Linger longer, get beyond the immediate impression, hear how the work’s slow accretion of time itself begins to emerge, for Claude’s art seems to be about time, or rather actually is Time itself, as presence, eternity, and past shift through the atmospheric layers of light and air. But look and listen still longer, and the slow movements of time become masquerades over inner turbulence, anxiety and fragility, perhaps of a personal state or perhaps of the world. And read the titles – for instance, Heaven’s Hill, Before the Sun, Sleepwalkers, Earth’s Alarm. Breathe in the tiles, so that their many poetic layers emerge through the painted surfaces. Does Sleepwalkers refer to unconscious bodies aimlessly gliding through midnight rooms, the unreality of their actions, the zombie-like state so many of our fellow citizens buy into, the 1992 film, something else, or perhaps all these interpretations simultaneously? Claude’s work has a formal elegance that comes with being at complete ease with his materials and process, but underneath its beauty is the complexity of contemporary life itself. Give yourself the pleasure of a meditative visit to his exhibition, now up at Washburn Gallery through Dec. 31, and you will be well-rewarded.