VENICE

Wesley Kimler, a 34-year-old painter from Chicago, is billed as a young academic artist working in the tradition of Willem De Kooning, David Park and Jackson Pollock. If that sounds like the kiss of death, it at least places Kimler in the right company, though only forward-looking children of the ‘60s and ‘70s would fail to make the association. Kimler’s no innovator, just a very energetic, idealistic and able painter who wastes no time declaring his Abstract Expressionist heroes. Any minute now he’ll drive up to the gallery in a car plastered with “AE Lives” and “Pollock Is Pure” bumper stickers. He’ll be wearing an “I Like Real Painting” button.

Indebted as they are, Kimler’s paintings are real. They flaunt second-hand ideas with admirable gusto in big, paired canvases. Working in high contrasts and rich, definite color, Kimler casts off former figurative images while retaining an organic flavor. He counters wide, purposeful paths of pigment with spatters, drips and noose-like lines, often cinching up the whole in a crossroads configuration or centering attention on an imposing mound or a pod-like entity.

Tagged with romantic titles, such as “Memories of Spring,” “Dark Sleeper” and “Return to the Sea,” but containing few specific visual references, they leave the imagination free to wander through a vast array of natural forces and emotions. Familiar, yes; boring, never. (L.A. Louver Gallery, 77 Market St., to May 16.)