I find myself promoting shows at Kirsten Anderson's Roq la Rue Gallery fairly often. The reason for this is a basic one: The gallery puts up exceptional shows month after month, almost without fail. Every new exhibition is a feast of images to delight and disturb. Roq la Rue is responsible for some of my most wonderful nightmares and some of my most terrifying dreams.

From Feb. 8 through March 1, Roq la Rue presents "A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities," a group show with an animal theme. If you've ever visited the gallery or thumbed through Anderson's book "Pop Surrealism," you may have some idea of what an animal theme means to artists like Brian Despain, Amy Sol, Lisa Petrucci, Kozydan, Liz McGrath, Mark Frauenfelder, Nathan Ota and Jim Woodring.

Suffice it to say that no one provided Roq la Rue with a Wegman-esque dog portrait or an LOLcat. John Brophy's "The Blue Baku" is a four-limbed, fire-breathing Janus. In "New Iron Age," Jim Woodring presents a holiday snapshot of an alien amphibian and his pet snail. Laura Plansker's "Who's Afraid Of The Big Dead Wolf" turns a certain children's story into an adult revenge fantasy. And Amy Sol's wood paintings give us cats as fashion accoutrements -- emerging from heart-shaped lockets, draped languidly around necks.

Though many of the animals in Roq la Rue's "Cabinet" look like nothing you've known, they seem somehow familiar. You've felt these critters tromping around inside your head. You've made imaginary childhood friends of them, and even domesticated them in your own wonderful and terrifying dreams.

The show's opening reception is Friday, Feb. 8, from 6 to 9 p.m.

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