La Cienega Area

About five years ago local painter Julia Nee Chu established herself as an Abstract Expressionist in the best generic sense. Done with a brushy calligraphic touch of telling Oriental brevity, her abstractions summoned up gardens, childhood journeys, mercurial psychic moods. She proved her knack for an unforgiving format, so it’s a little disappointing to find current work emphasizing wild, sometimes derivative abstraction at the expense of the expression.

New canvases and works on paper are awash in seemingly random splashes and smears. The large work “Tibetan” captures the generally equivocal feel. Dark paint looks all but hurled on an expanse of enervated, low-key color; drips convey pigment gone awry instead of believable license or exuberance. In “After the Rain” and “Nightfall,” Chu tightens her grip over materials and seems accomplished again. Lush ebonies seem to bleed out from an earthen ground in “Nightfall” and a bright velvety blue swatch makes a moody, romantic case for the imminent end of day. (Simard-Halm Gallery, 665 N. La Cienega Blvd., to June 4.)