Another fortnight, another Friday evening opening at the excellent London Miles Gallery in Ladbroke Grove. This time around, it’s a split solo show between acclaimed surreal portrait artist Stella Im Hultberg and nature-inspired artist Scott Belcastro.

The show is very much focused on Im Hultberg’s work, a collection of portraits painted on wooden panels. The faces she depicts are haunting and seductive; wide eyes look out at and often beyond us, as though entranced by something beyond the frames of the painting. The backgrounds of many of these paintings seem somehow from a dream in space.

Unusually for the artist, many of the portraits are enveloped in detailed hair, out of control, perhaps symbolic of the lack of power we hold over the bodies we possess. These pieces all seem suggestive of a snapshot from a longer narrative that we are intruding into; Azurely is such a piece. A naked woman appears as though looking at the viewer in disapproval, frustrated by our intrusion into her private dream. Her eyes, like many others in Fragmented still seem sleepy, but here they have power. We are pushed away but drawn into the painting. Her hair, again beautifully detailed, floats upwards. Her naked body seems delicate but also resilient.

There are small portraits on tea-stained paper that, although more delicate than the wooden-panelled pieces, sit comfortably in the selection. These are less bold than the other pieces, but also intriguing. The character depicted seems to go through stages, from pained, to pensive, to self-realisation; all through the gaze.

Chance combines the smooth perfection of acrylic with sharpness of colour applied over the wooden surface with pencils, the eyes in this painting more focused than the others. The incredible detail is outstanding, and this piece is one of the stand outs of Im Hultberg’s part of the exhibition.

Scott Belcastro, in contrast, is inspired by the natural environment from his native upstate New York upbringing. His paintings are, like Im Hultberg’s pieces, a strange balance between strength and fragility, but using minimal colours and few details.

Shadow and silhouette are recurrent in his work, where dusk is revealed to be a place when nature releases its secrets. Birds of prey are silhouettes, save for bright touches of paint for eyes. Small details are everything in these pieces; tiny brushstrokes for grass, delicate lines for trees, small flicks of red for flocks of pursued birds.

Dramatic in their simplicity, Belcastro’s pieces are as haunting as Im Hultberg’s. The two shows oddly compliment each other, making this small show one of the most essential exhibitions currently on in London.