Soo Visual Arts Center in Minneapolis opens two intriguing exhibitions today. In the main gallery, you'll find the group show "A New Breed of Watercolor": It's a fascinating assemblage work by artists who exploit the distinct, diffuse effect of watercolor, but in defiance of the safely pretty conventions of the form.

As the gallery's exhibition description promises, these are "not demure landscapes or lovely seaside vistas; these artists use watercolor techniques to depict enigmatic narratives, architectural landscapes, and eerie portraiture." The show features recent watercolor pieces by artists Serena Cole,  Keren Kroul, Margaret Pezalla-Granlund, Lindsay Smith and Betsy Walton.

The images are remarkably vivid even online; I'm eager to see, in person, each artist's twist on this traditionally delicate medium.

Before you leave, be sure to check out the smaller Gallery Too section of Soo VAC: There you'll find "Springtime Follies," a selection of deliciously discomfiting new work in the "Miscreants of Tiny Town" series by painter Alex Kuno. I've been an admirer of Kuno's work for a while now.

His purgatorial depictions of the darkly fanciful netherworld, "Tiny Town," pack the wryly clever punch of Edward Gorey but are evocative of something darker, more visceral. The grisly narrative scenes, populated by sad-eyed children in various states of distress, are at once idyllic and troubling, like the dimly remembered candyland nightmares of early youth.

Both the main group show, "A New Breed of Watercolor," and Alex Kuno's "Springtime Follies" in the pocket gallery will open tonight at Soo Visual Arts Center with a free reception from 6 to 9 p.m.; the exhibitions will be on view through July 26.