LA CIENEGA AREA

Michael Radvand shows paintings of mammoth nudes and heroic-looking horses formed from swirling, sketchy strokes and emphatic coloration. The figures, sometimes barely distinguishable from their loose, animated grounds, play out vague biblical dramas. Works such as “Allegory II” strive for the high-strung 20th-Century classicism of Sandro Chia. Those in which figuration is all but lost in gesture seem to grope for content but never quite find it. (Gallery West, 107 S. Robertson, to Feb. 23.)