Mystery! Sex! Religion! Politics! Military maneuvers! All those and more are found in the magical realism of Venezuelan painter Alfredo Arcia, whose subject matter often defies explanation or analysis but never fails to jolt the imagination.

In "El Arresto," one of the artist’s least complicated compositions, armed soldiers in combat gear debark a military truck, apparently heading for a strolling bride and bridegroom still in wedding attire. In the foreground is an excavated trench containing the shattered remains of a Corinthian column and sculpture of Pan, the Greek god associated with fertility. Two pipes, possibly water mains, cross the trench...