LA CIENEGA AREA

Apart from episodes of travel, Morton Dimondstein has been a stalwart on the local scene since the Second World War. Like many of the older generation of Southern California painters, Dimondstein has eschewed changing fads and fashions, evolving instead within the ongoing Modernist figurative tradition that began in Europe at the end of the 19th Century. Now working almost exclusively on collaged paper, Dimondstein draws freely from historical precedents. The flattened perspective and Fauve-like colors of his studio portraits echo Matisse, the agitated Expressionism of his brush work calls to mind Van Gogh, while his predilection for formal dislocation and retinal simultaneity, particularly in his landscapes, owes obvious debts to Cezanne.

One could argue that in this Post-Modernist era of recycled pluralism, such aesthetic single-mindedness is not only perversely hermetic but completely redundant. We have become used to work that explores the mechanics of visual language and seeks out layers of signification rather than striving for dubious notions of transcendence. On the other hand, it’s refreshing to see work that contains no hint of irony, no quotation of “dead” styles, and most importantly, no tendencies toward conceptual distancing or mannerism. Dimondstein, with his sure sense of composition, his ability to exploit color as a formal device, and a free-spirited feeling for improvisation, may not be the world’s greatest innovator, but his work contains an innate integrity and intelligence that many emerging artists would do well to emulate. (Heritage Gallery, 718 N. La Cienega Blvd., to Oct. 25.)