Can invented worlds share common ground? They do in "Winter Color," a bright and vibrant show on view through February 15 at Kishka Gallery & Library in White River Junction. Cocurators Ben Finer and Bevan Dunbar have brought together a handful of pieces from three artists who create their own distinct visual languages yet whose aesthetics and techniques share a close conversation. Jess Johnson is known for her trippy, sci-fi-inspired imagery, which starts out in her drawings and gouache paintings and has made its way into major installations, videos, fashion and virtual reality simulations. Imagine a 1970s Samuel Delany space orgy that takes place inside a Minecraft simulation of an M.C. Escher drawing, and you're nearly there. Elements in her work include snakes and worms, stylized bodies in all hues, gaping faces without noses, circuits and tubes, and third eyes. There's a voracious quantity of pattern, details piled on details to create something immersive and enigmatic. It's not surprising that Johnson has projected her imagery as video in planetarium-style dome screenings; it's very surprising that, with the help of her mom, she has made it into quilts. Two of those, "Flesh Nebula" and "Necrotic Scroll," are on view at Kishka. Johnson lives and works in New York; her mother, Cynthia Johnson, lives in Whangarei, New Zealand, where Jess grew up. Jess combines hand-drawn elements from her paintings in Photoshop and has them commercially printed on fabric. Cynthia then adds pieced borders of her own design and machine-quilts the entire work. Quilting literally gives Johnson's imagery another dimension, one that's tactile and real; the works read more like Tarot cards or illuminated manuscripts than video games. The addition of detail and labor lend gravitas and care to Johnson's dizzying visual vocabulary. And the patterns that abound in the quilts play off of the other works in the show. Edie Fake, who lives near Joshua Tree National Park in California and is known for his illustrations and graphic novels, presents three works from "Shell Game," a series of 16-by-20-inch gouache paintings on panel. Each features an abstract pattern set off by careful line gradients that create a neon glow from afar. Fake's bright palette — yellow and magenta but also taupe and coral, muddier colors that nonetheless seem luminescent — is set off by black areas that suck in the light. According to Kishka co-owner Finer, Fake uses specially formulated…