In the Middle Ages, a “hellmouth” was an image of the gates of hell presented as the yawning red mouth of a great beast. “My Hellmouth,” the first solo museum exhibition of work by Lauren Quin, who is 30, is a modern interpretation of the inferno’s entrance. Her oils on canvas—measuring 13 by 6.5 feet, they dominate the space in which they hang—vibrate with bright colors and the frenetic movement of overlapping shapes. Their dominant visual motif is one of tubes that intertwine in the foreground of each piece. Painted in reds and pinks, they resemble something organic: a system of tree roots or coiling internal organs. As the final step in her process, Quin carves intricate patterns into the still-wet paint of the tubes. “I wanted to make something that couldn’t really be encapsulated by an image,” she has said. —Paulina Prosnitz