LA CIENEGA AREA

Terry Winters’ recent paintings don’t look exactly like anything you have seen before, but they quiver with recognizable energy. It’s the sort of power that comes from assembling a lot of little modules into a surprisingly strong structure--as in Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes--or from amassing cells into a complex, living being. The wholes are definitely greater than the parts as they cluster in floating mounds or in clumps of balls sprouting rays of energy. Highly suggestive without referring to anything specific, these forms have affinities to plant life, communications satellites and three-dimensional puzzles.

In three of the four big paintings that command the space of a large gallery, these forms stand out from their backgrounds, as if floating on them, and seem to grow from some inner source. Most prepossessing is a black, white and gray work called “Compound,” in which an oval volume composed of tightly packed blocks pushes out of its linen support and seems to get bigger by the minute. The fourth work, “Monkey Puzzle,” immerses loopy configurations in gray paint so thick that it wrinkles.

Generally dull in color, raw in surface and certainly not pretty, Winters’ work is nonetheless compelling. The New York artist uses oils and encaustic with such physical gusto and structural logic that the materials seem to have willed themselves into their present format. (Daniel Weinberg Gallery, 619 N. Almont Ave., to June 27.)