Santa Monica

Always respectable but rarely exciting, George Page’s painted wood constructions soberly merge the territories of painting, sculpture and--increasingly--architecture. An ambitious group of new pieces adds a few variations in angled panels and pockets of latticework, but the boldest move is toward less fussy, free-standing sculpture. “Shales Lover” is an iconic, 13-foot-tall plank, perforated by X’s, painted with cracked black over white and red enamel, and anchored at top and bottom by rounded slabs that project at right angles. “AOB and BOC” is a massive red, fence-like structure, while “Indigo from Brazil” stands like an enormous door, just behind the gallery entrance.

These structures are imposing in scale, but they seem oddly self-effacing. As is frequently true of Page’s work, painting is the problem. The tentative quality of the loosely brushed color generally mollifies sculptural and architecture structure instead of enhancing it. Page’s painting is more than decoration in this new work, but less than an equal partner. (Ruth Bachofner Gallery, 926 Colorado Ave., to May 14.)