It’s tricky business to effectively show artwork in coffee shops and restaurants. On one hand, the warmth of a good cup of joe and a comfortable seat at a sunny corner table coaxes a sort of informal, patient looking, a chance at the kind of friendly, one-on-one conversation between a serious viewer and the work which serves both well. On the other hand, these spaces buzz with distraction — clinking plates and silverware, snatches of overheard conversation and all manner of interesting things to divert your gaze from the piece in front of you. Enveloped in the surrounding hubbub of a humming business, it’s easy for even accomplished work to seem diminished and for the viewer’s experience of it to be fragmented and uneven.

The fact that Jim Denomie’s vivid paintings for “American Narratives,” this month’s show at the Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar in Lowertown, command undivided attention even in this cacophonous setting is itself noteworthy. His contributions to the exhibition are mostly portraits, many of them modest in size, immediately recognizable as his by the muscular brushwork, strong narrative undercurrents and exuberantly jewel-toned palette. And encoded in each one of his faces is a story rich in history and place, told in a kind of painterly shorthand, enriched by a few just-right details.

Alongside Denomie’s paintings are a handful of mixed media pieces by Carolyn Lee Anderson. Hers, too, are driven by story, replete with imagery that speaks to the interconnections of family and landscape. Brimming with heart’s-blood and passion, sepia-toned family portraits and poetic text in the visual field — to my eye, they’re hugely indebted to the visceral imagery and visual lexicon of Frida Kahlo.

The through-line of the show explores themes of identification, of American-ness, and of the cultivation of identities both self-proclaimed and imposed from outside. Denomie (a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe) is known for playing with and against American Indian stereotypes in his work. A member of the Navajo Nation, Anderson’s work also often centers on themes exploring native identities and the inescapable ties of ancestry and one’s native landscape.

But to simply stop there, to place these pieces in a tidy box called “Native American narratives”  misses the subtlety, layered wit and occasional artistic virtuosity of the work on view here.

Two of Denomie’s paintings at the Black Dog, in particular, linger in my mind. They are among the smaller, subtler pieces in the show, and both of them are portraits: “Untitled (re-hab)” and “Sad Boy Laughing.” The brushwork is incredibly economical, but unerring and thoroughly evocative. In the former piece, for example, with just a few gestural strokes, Denomie gives you the dissolute, rheumy gaze of a habitual drunk; likewise, in just a handful of short vertical strokes the “sad boy” has an unnervingly toothy, too-wide smile. The deft execution and authentic pathos in these understated little works is masterfully handled — well worth an afternoon’s contemplation over lunch and a good cup of coffee.

“American Narratives,” with work by Jim Denomie and Carolyn Lee Anderson, is on view through July 31 at the Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar, 308 Prince St., Saint Paul, Minn. 55101; 651-228-9274; blackdogstpaul.com.