HELENA, MT.-The Holter Museum of Art presents Allegory, Icon & Metaphor: Recent Works by Stephanie Frostad, Arin Waddell, and Cathy Weber, on view through October 31. In Allegory, Icon and Metaphor, three painters reference the history of allegorical and still-life painting to identify larger experiences and employ a visual language that is rich with nuance, subtlety, and often humor.

These artists put a new twist on traditional forms: allegory—a story in which characters or events symbolize an underlying meaning with religious or spiritual implications; icon—traditionally a sacred image venerated in the Eastern Church, but also any image that is the object of great attention and devotion; and metaphor—which compares two things by identifying one with the other.

Stephanie Frostad paints precise, spare images whose dramatic force comes from the charged relationships between the few objects depicted. Her sensitive, mysterious, and sometimes melancholy work leaves the viewer to fill in the blanks. Frostad, originally from Walla Walla, Washington, now lives in Missoula. She studied art in Florence, Italy; at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore; and the University of Montana.

Arin Waddell uses everyday objects, such as chairs, poppies, pencils, and daffodils, as icons to create stirring narratives about the natural and man-made worlds. The paintings describe relationships in which these worlds are juxtaposed, often with whimsical results. Waddell was raised on a cattle ranch in central Montana. She studied art at Hamilton College in New York; California State University, Chico; and the University of Texas, San Antonio. She currently lives in Dayton, Wyoming.

In Cathy Weber’s rich landscapes and sensitive still-lifes, embellished with symbols drawn from medieval manuscripts and book plates, everything—even people—stands for something other than what it is. An internal dialog weaves a narrative just below the surface. Weber grew up in the Midwest and studied art at the Herron School of Art and Indiana University. In 1981 she moved to Dillon, Montana, where she maintains a studio in the historic downtown.