NEW YORK.-Weary New Yorkers, exhausted by everything from 9.11 to the Iraq war will discover a welcome respite this holiday season in ”Recovering Joy,” the two- artist exhibit opening December 10 at the Diesel Gallery in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Movable, whimsical cutout figures by Alexandra Corbin and relaxed, evocative compositions by Joshua Kibuka, invite viewers to become an active part of the creative process, encouraging playfulness and peaceful contemplation.

”Recovering Joy,” set to open December 10 at the Diesel Gallery in Red Hook, is one of this season’s most aptly-named art offerings. The two-artist exhibit, features Brooklyn artists Alexandra Corbin and Joshua Kibuka, and some of the most cheerful, engaging, and restorative work you’re likely to find this holiday season.

Ms. Corbin, a native New Yorker who resides in Carroll Gardens, is an established artist and illustrator whose work is included in the fine arts collections of the Corcoran Gallery, the Terra Museum and the Museum of Natural History, among others. In this show, Ms. Corbin shares her delightfully original, phantasmagoric, cutout figures: An elegantly attired, long in the tooth, baton-wielding rat, is one example. These "Critters" are constructed of heavy paperboard, imbuing them with a pleasing tactile quality. Displayed in shadowboxes alone or in groups, the colorful characters can be removed and rearranged at will, allowing the art and the viewer to collaborate in the creative process. "Each piece carries the seed of a story--of thousands of stories--as unique as the observer and his or her feeling at any given moment….But, don't build a mountain of philosophy around the work, “ she continues, “Just go with it and have fun!”

Joshua Kibuka was born in Kampala, Uganda in 1974 and arrived in New York in 1979. He studied painting at Parson’s School of Design and has worked with the Dionysis Theater Lab .His works have been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout New York City and are part of many private collections.Mr. Kibuka’s work lives somewhere in that nebulous space between representational and abstract. Vaguely identifiable shadow-figures move through a street in one work; undulating forms of muted and bright colors are suddenly arrested by a dark line, like an unfinished thought, in another. “I start with what I call “Big Ideas,” says Mr. Kibuka, “iconic concepts such a as ‘love’ ‘hate’ ‘choice’—as the basis for my works. At times, I’m surprised at how a specific piece, even one I may not have considered ‘successful,’ seems to reveal itself powerfully to an individual viewer…it’s as if it’s transformed by some alchemical reaction that takes place between the work and the observer.”

Both Ms. Corbin and Mr. Kibuka’s works draw their viewers close. Ms. Corbin’s oddly-fashioned, chimeral creatures comfortably occupy that border town of fantasy and reality and invite us to accompany them there. Mr. Kibuka’s work, too, invites us explore this realm, this middle space, each work sitting tentatively—expectantly—waiting for the dialogue between the art and the observer to begin and begin again.