Narrative, when you find it in the visual arts, is usually thick with mystery. In paint and photography, you don’t have the luxury of text to tell your story. So unless you’re working in comic art or video, the stories you tell will always be indirect and imperfect, leaving the viewer to fill in the gaps. Painter Michael Nakoneczny, who lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, clearly has stories to tell. His scrappy mixed-media paintings on Masonite are populated with characters, and there’s a childlike directness to his work—a kind of unschooled emotionality that’s very appealing. But the little scenes, which call to mind the cartoons of Lynda Barry, raise more questions than they answer. Who’s the man with his wingtip shoes off, and why is Frankenstein lurking behind him? Who are those people in the little Asian-style houses—and is that guy vomiting blood? Who’s that woman in Shadow by Munch (above)? A prostitute? A girl anxiously awaiting the results of a medical exam? You look for clues in the portraits of dictators and birds on the wall behind her, but this only increases the ambiguity. The fragments of text sprinkled throughout are equally unhelpful: “Hai. You would be very nice and warm. $12.50” in the painting River House is probably the beginning of a great travel tale filled with bedbugs and sleepless nights—but who knows? Nakoneczny’s visual stories lead in circles, and it’s fun to go round and round. Grover/Thurston Gallery, 309 Occidental St., 206-223-0816. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat.