LA CIENEGA AREA

Bon Gordon’s abstract paintings would look conservative if they’d been done in the late ‘50s when Abstract Expressionism developed an anxious personality split between formalism and figuration. A dozen compositions are rather small, given the grandiose scale of old AE, and that be a clue to their real nature.

Mostly they are big slathers of grayed-down paint, very preoccupied with frontiers and borders and occasionally visited by a nervous human gesture that is about equally bold and scared of itself. (“Well, I’ll just close my eyes and put a big risky mark right THERE. I hope I did that right.”) The general effect is of formal compositions engulfing woozy landscape and interiors where bits and pieces of real things linger. “The Bishop in the Desert” hints at a rusty tin chair supporting a truncated cleric in a cowboy hat. “Bohea” lets light spill through door and window onto a swirl of paint like the horns of a ram.

The work comes on big but it feels like sharded memories in small rooms where ragtag snippets of memory come back as silly, groundless worries. (Mekler Gallery, 651 La Cienega Blvd., through Feb. 13.)