HOLLYWOOD

An art-world Rambo has been shaping up in various guises for the last four years in John Sonsini’s paintings. He has been a cartoon character, a fallen hero and an anxious youth trying to get tough enough to meet all comers. In a show of recent paintings, Sonsini now gives us a full-blown muscle man with bulging thighs and pulsing pectorals. You don’t always see him clearly; his contours tend to emerge slowly from the dark, crusty impasto of acrylics on canvas.

In “Build Up” Sonsini’s hero comes into view as a cluster of rounded forms gripping barbells. He is observed by a woman with long blond hair in “Widow’s Watch.” And in “Boxed Men,” he is turned into various statues atop trophies, all stacked up like an impenetrable iron gate of he-men.

As always, Sonsini uses the muscle man as a metaphor for the process of building strength--mental as well as physical. It’s a timeless theme that has held up through a wavering parade of artwork. There are signs of painterly gusto in this new work, in compositions that gather force as thundering waves of pigment and in a tone of sleazy self-involvement that echoes the aesthetic of storefront gymnasiums. There are also problems, such as murky areas that create dead spaces, but this art appears to be bumping along on its way to maturity. (Newspace, 5241 Melrose Ave., to Nov. 8.)--S.M.