Singularities A unique array at the Space at Alice BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

Holiday art shows that have a cap on prices make a lot of sense for everyone. People are in an appreciative and generous mood at this time of year — what better to share than an art work that especially appeals to you? As for the artists, an added venue is worth a discount or two.

The third annual It’s Not So Big, It’s Not So Pricey show at the Space at Alice (through January 1) is a wide-ranging presentation of up to three works by 28 painters, sculptors, photographers, ceramicists, and jewelry-makers. No items are more than $300. (And don’t forget the annual Little Pictures Show at the Providence Art Club through December 23, with everything $225 and under.)

The offerings at Alice are an imaginative and diverse collection. Representational paintings are what many people think of when they think "art show," but only one such artist provides that here. What Todd Ingham’s "Slater Park Festival" and "Wickenden Steeple" represent, however, is the visual welter of walking among art booths in a park or down a sunny city street. His skillful palette-knife work creates patches and stripes of oil paint that the viewer consciously assembles into representations. Ingham is no slave to technique, so his "Backyard Poppy" is much more graceful with the slathered lines, as befits a peaceful garden scene. The only other non mixed-media painter here, Season James, creates completely abstract works with titles such as "Soft Horizons." Acrylic drips join hovering, soft-edged Rothko-like shapes in these quietly moody works.

If you insist on images you can recognize, there are "City Views" by photographer Frank Gasbarro. The smokestacks, river view, and cityscape are rescued from pictorial literalness by being printed on watercolor paper, then filtered with colors adjusted toward pastels. Displayed next to those are two creative photographs by Patrizia Pelosi that abstractly combine architecture and human presence. In "Slaves of Language," a profile of mute lips is encased by convoluted gray skyscraper granite.

Thomas Terceira’s collages grab attention because they are visually appealing but also because they aren’t packed to bursting with arbitrary or hopelessly obscure juxtapositions, a frequent failing of the medium. You can’t call his "Thinker" impenetrable when it has a bird trilling on a branch next to the ear of the wizened 19th-century gentleman of an appropriated photograph, with the title masking the eyes like a blindfold. It’s saved from being overly explicit by a diagram of a planetary orbit beneath him, purposeful but providing a dollop of ambiguity. Hillary Treadwell’s two "The Sweetness of Falling" collages are also rescued by evocative simplicity, with black outline figures pogo-stick bouncing and diving above the water of coastal maps.

There is further whimsy. Jim Bush’s pencil drawings of elephants unworriedly suspending from hot air balloons decorated with stars and stripes makes a droll social comment that will bring a smile to your lips or a chill to your bones, depending on your political persuasion.

Some people insist that the art they purchase be practical. You may stick a twig in Asya Palatova’s pristine white stoneware titled "Fig Jug", which is shaped like that fruit, but it’s enough to simply gaze at the lovely form. Likewise with Meris Berreto’s "fused, slumped glass" platter shapes —you’ll think twice before obscuring the calligraphic swaths suspended in the clear glass circles.

Those practical-minded should be wary of Gillian Christy’s "non-functioning tea pots." The two sculptures, made of steel and copper or silver, are in her "Pondering Home" series and merge, for example, the image of a mailbox with that of the symbol of front parlor hospitality.

Speaking of functional art, works by eight jewelry makers are here. There are the flowing earring and necklace shapes of Devienna Anggraini and Amanda White (the latter’s clever "Faucet Earrings" have tiny silver chain spraying out of graceful suspended cones), plus the sweeping angular hook earrings of Adrienne Smelko and the distinctive stacks of jigsaw puzzle pieces changing shape in the earrings of Dawn White.

The Space at Alice is a cooperative effort of the Arts and Business Council of Rhode Island and the real estate developers Cornish Associates. The gallery, at 186 Union Street, is open Thursday through Saturday from 4 to 7 pm or by appointment (401.621.6108).