For the child growing up in the comfort and security of middle-class America, a carnival's alien cacophony of neon lights, unfamiliar smells and eclectic people is at once scary and alluring. Nowhere does the pervasive intersection of pleasure and fear at these transient events become more apparent than on the roller coaster, where squeals of delight can turn into screams of terror within seconds.

This dichotomy forms the basis for Susan Meyer's latest installation, a roller coaster-inspired piece which she has cleverly titled "Malfunction Junction," appropriating the name of a defunct club on 13th Avenue.

Since earning her master of fine arts degree in 1991 from Tufts University in Boston, the Denver artist's career has risen steadily with her participation in a range of local and regional exhibitions, including a solo show in 2000 at the Nicolaysen Museum in Casper, Wyo.

In 2002, she scored considerable success with "Private Road," a multifaceted installation at the Ironton Gallery that was both vaguely nostalgic and gently provocative. If I had certain reservations about the offering at the time, the unexpected power and vividness of my recollections of it have erased them.

Meyer is back with this latest installation, which runs through April 3 at the +Zeile/Judish Gallery. It just might be her best yet.

This exciting site-specific work, which combines light, sound, space and form into a brilliantly realized whole, erases any lingering doubts about her position as one of Denver's most significant and forward-thinking artists.

The main part of the installation is a reduced-scale yet still massive roller coaster in an irregular horseshoe shape; the ends run into the ground, suggesting that the piece is both of the world around it and separated from it.

The 23-foot-long, 7 1/2-foot-tall structure - a visually compelling, self-contained sculpture in its own right - is impeccably crafted with uniformly spaced and configured legs, each with X-shaped cross-supports echoing the exposed trusses in the ceiling of the historic commercial building housing the gallery.

At the foot of the roller coaster, slightly blocking the opening of the horseshoe, is a black-and-white wall mural depicting a car and bus crashing into each other or perhaps into some void; the vehicles careen off what appears to be the ends of a pier or roller coaster tracks that stop in midair.

A web of round, reddish lights dot the mural. Running along the roller coaster's undulating platform where the rails would normally be are parallel rows of white lights that flash in a carefully controlled pattern.

Illuminating the bare bricks of this ideal space, they suggest the garish and eye-grabbing lights adorning real carnival rides. Along with a motion-triggered musical sound track, they evoke the other-worldly sensation of the midway and give the whole installation a festive feel.

But the overt fun of this work is deliberately offset by the literal depiction of disaster in the mural and the imposing presence of the roller coaster, which draws on the power of memory to conjure a host of conflicting emotions, including anxiety and perhaps outright fear.

This clash of feelings and perceptions plus the vibrant physicality of this installaton assure its effectiveness, but Meyer has gone one step further, exploring the metaphorical possibilities as well.

Using a quote in her artist's statement from curator and art historian Robert Storr, she sees her roller coaster as a metaphor for "the exaggerated social and aesthetic incongruities upon which contemporary culture is predicated."

Ably complementing the installation is "Silent Sounds," a small exhibition of eight mixed-media works by Seattle artist Stefan Knorr. These pieces take a different stylistic and technical approach but also explore incongruities in contemporary society in their own fascinating if slightly derivative way.

Using the montaged, often photo-based imagery in Robert Rauschenberg's paintings as an obvious starting point and drawing on a range of other artistic influences such as Sigmar Polke, Knorr creates complex, multilayered canvases that combine offset lithography, acrylic and pigments.

The resulting compositions can verge on the overwhelming. This is the case with "Opium," with its almost dizzying onrush of overlapping, seemingly contradictory images: Mickey Mouse, a cat and a costumed female figure suggesting Scheherazade of "Arabian Nights" fame.

These two offerings, especially Meyer's outstanding installation, are a coup for this newly merged gallery and establish it as a force on Denver's art scene.

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