Hollywood

Doug Young shows large scale watercolors describing the churning white water and sienna breakers of his native Hawaii. Pissarro and Monet would have loved this fellow; he translates visual reality into magnified patterns of light and color viewed from strange aerial vantage points. Like the work of those artists, the subject remains tangible and discernible; the difference is that Impressionism’s approach is cerebral and Young’s is delightfully sensual.

In one work a throng of feeding koi looks like streaks of orange lightning piercing the iridescent geometry created by sun on water. This sort of realism runs the risk of being called calendar or tourist art, but Young prevents that with deft drawing and a sophisticated trick of faceting the picture plane--much like David Hockney does in his photo collages--so that several separate drawings randomly overlap to form each undulating composite scene.

Wes Christensen shows impeccably realistic, minute drawings in pencil, watercolor and gouache. He packs each 6-inch piece with knock-your-socks-off craft and encyclopedic, mysterious detail. A co-ed sits before an elaborate temple at the edge of a lily pond contemplating an exotic fragment; a woman cradles a treasured, teeny doll house while another menacingly brandishes a hammer; a velvety, voluptuous nude pores over books while a benign black cat looks on. Some of it gets melodramatic (“Fugue State”) and certain works look like mere excuses to draw, but on the whole these are impressive little jewels. (Space Gallery, 6015 Santa Monica Blvd., to May 14.)