LA CIENEGA AREA

Ah, to be a blond California surfer riding an endless wave with your girl friend standing triumphantly on your shining shoulders. The fantasy is irresistible and painter Hank Pitcher has embraced it with mystical fervor. A dozen new paintings make moral heroes out of chunky guys silhouetted against the sunset, a couple standing lost in the starry vastness around their little beach bonfire.

In “The Palm Reader” Pitcher pokes fun at his own credulity and there lies the rub. The artist appeared here a few years back painting in the heavy shadow of Max Beckmann and sharing some of the German master’s fascination with fashion and moral decay. The Santa Barbara artist has since subscribed to a Health und Strength mystique that reflects a likeable idealism but just doesn’t wash in paintings whose technique has become almost as simplistic as their ideas.

There are complicated Jamesian ideas here about innocence and sophistication, but what it boils down to is that adolescence can never be retrieved. There are no obvious ideas in five drawings of female nudes and couples, but they carry a wallop of affection, wryness and believability lacking in the paintings.

Pitcher seems to be looking for a big, fine cause to champion. There are plenty around, but this kind of sentimental slosh is not among them. Actually there is no problem here if this art will just learn the lessons of the drawings, cut out the preaching and play it straight. (Jessica Darraby Gallery, 8214 Melrose Ave., to June 4.)