LA CIENEGA AREA

Margaret Nielsen’s postcard-size dreamscapes are an unusual fusion of the apocalyptic and the mystical, which may explain their vague allusions to Dante’s nightmarish melodramas, as well as the Romanticism of William Blake and the enigmatic metaphors of such late 19th-Century Symbolists as Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau. Nielsen ties together this psychological Sturm und Drang via a storyboard technique that draws equally upon the compositional claustrophobia of film noir and the surreal fantasies of Jean Cocteau.

Nielsen roots her work in an ongoing, repetitive “narrative” that centers upon what appears to be a hunting trip. Set largely at night, her thickly painted, vividly colored scenarios set man, and by extension, the audience, against both the full fury and sinister irrationalities of untamed natural elements. Fiery infernos, deluges of water, lightning bolts and “rivers” of serpents are contrasted with moonlit lakeside vistas and the apparent haven of the arbor or campfire in order to explore our unconscious phobias. Even the most innocent of scenes appears fraught with danger. Thus in “Hearth,” where birds flock around a fire like flies around a light bulb, Nielsen injects an obsessive, self-destructive urge that belies the apparent comforts of the title.

While Nielsen’s use of reduced scale increases the immediate psychological impact of her work, forcing us by turns to internalize and distance ourselves from the imagery, it also makes us suspect her painterly strategy. On larger canvases, the work would come across as overblown and obsessive. Here, Nielsen seems determined to prove that her painting has a heroic grandeur despite a 5-inch by 7-inch format.

The results seem self-conscious and oddly mannered, as if Gericault were trying to paint like a miniaturist and ended up merely sketching out the essence rather than the full panoply of his vision. This contradiction between scope and scale proves to be Nielsen’s undoing. Her work is predicated on triggering broad, subconscious responses in the viewer, yet her deliberate, expressionistic paint handling leads to such a literal and pinched reading of her metaphors that little is actually left to the imagination. (Asher/Faure, 612 N. Almont Drive, to Oct. 4.)--C.G.