The conceptual photographer Hitoshi Fugo’s series “Flying Frying Pan 1979-1994” has a simple premise: a 15-year study of Fugo’s iron pan. He chose the pan as a subject because he thought it would free him from specifics — of time and place, and even of recognizable shape. It also has personal resonance for the artist: He used the pan to prepare many meals for his wife and daughter throughout her childhood.

In his studies of this everyday object, Fugo sets out to create images that don’t impose a sense of narrative. His abstracted photos play with the viewer’s perspective on the microscopic and macroscopic levels, conjuring both the cellular world and the edge of the universe. From photo to photo, our associations shift wildly: “Flying Frying Pan 18” might look like the view through a telescope, while “Flying Frying Pan 47” resembles the organelles inside a cell; “Flying Frying Pan 12,” in contrast to both, reminds the viewer of the sea hitting the coast. Fugo’s photos are spare, graphic — and always unexpected.