Santa Monica

No, Tino Zago’s vibrantly colored abstractions are not vulgar versions of Monet’s “Waterlilies.” They are hyperactive discussions on the correspondence between abstraction and representation. Well-schooled in the modernist debate about depicting illusionistic space on flat surfaces, these works chatter incessantly about the nature of painting nature. Three pastels and one painting ground the discourse in relatively literal interpretations of rocky coastlines. But the talk soon moves on to large canvases, called “At the Edge of Dream,” where long, thick strokes of unnaturally colored pigment border atmospheric expanses and little grids float above impasto snarls of foliage. Brash modernist flourishes seem to outshout the underlying communion with nature, but they don’t win the argument--nor does the New York artist intend that. He is having too much fun working on the problem of updating landscape painting to resolve the whole thing in a compromise.

In a concurrent exhibition, Magic Realist Jon Swihart presents a jewel-like parade of meticulously crafted little oils that cast contemporary people in situations that appear to be inspired by Renaissance painting. We see young adults clad in jeans, T-shirts and shorts who are engaged in epiphanies, annunciations and other holy missions. One man emerges from a trap door in the earth (a bomb shelter?), rather like Jesus resurrected. Another contemplates a statue of a golden calf. Pulling back the drape on a shed along a mountain trail, four people discover a man sleeping in a private shrine. Meanwhile, an angel visits a pair in a baby-blue living room.

Swihart’s flawless technique and intense subjects invest the paintings with a somber, religious purpose, but ludicrous setups and scattered evidence of contemporary decadence sharpen an edge of social commentary that saves this curious work from being a mere technical wonder. In an age when artists are encouraged to churn out paintings bigger and faster than ever, Swihart is a wonder, however. He builds three-dimensional models for all his paintings and finds it a challenge to complete a few tiny pieces each year. In this, his first solo show at a commercial gallery, the results are worth the effort. (Tortue Gallery, 2917 Santa Monica Blvd., to April 16.)