It's hard to write an art review while two cats are shoving the laptop out of the way to demand attention, but Julianna Brazill would certainly understand. Sassy felines feature prominently in both her biweekly funnies in the Fun Stuff section of this paper and "Recent Works," an exhibition of her drawings, paintings and cartoons on view at the South Burlington Public Art Gallery through January 24. In one cartoon, Brazill's cat threatens, "One more step and the glass gets it!" — a move the caption calls "Counter Terrorism." In another, Brazill muses on existential questions as the cat licks its butt, dismissively asking her, "Thorry, did you thay thumthing?" Saying what we all know they're thinking, the cats act as foils to Brazill's cartoon self, who is usually wearing a red hat or black-and-white striped shirt and often portrayed as insecure or neurotic. While the show features this familiar character, it also offers a deeper portrait of the artist through her landscapes and other works. In a detailed, literal self-portrait in ink and gouache, that same stripy tee is set off by a serious, confident gaze. Brazill shows us her world in some cartoons in a non-comic vein. "Nighttime Bike Ride" and "Among the Mosses (self portrait)" both place her character in a Vermont landscape with stylized fields and forests. Drawings such as the 9-by-12-inch pen-and-ink "Along the Winooski" take another step toward realism, articulating a house and utility poles near the riverbank with dense hatching and a sense of perspective that's not part of the cartoons' visual language. Brazill's gouache-on-paper paintings go further in that direction. The intimate 8-by-8-inch "Neighborhood at Night" shows a house in the moonlight, its close neighbors and sloped driveway suggesting Burlington's Old North End or Winooski. Its pinkish façade is visible in the darkness as bright, cozy light spills from its windows. "View From Mount Philo," one of the larger works in the show at 14 by 20 inches, zooms out instead, relying on color to convey scale. Sunlight brightens a middle ground of verdant fields, while blue Adirondacks march into the distance. Brazill's dramatic clouds are brushy and dark, with luminous edges; they make it clear that she enjoys playing with paint as much as with doodles and lines. It's neat to see an artist working in two modes as different as comics and traditional landscape, especially when we can…