Wilshire Center

Tom Bacher paints nighttime Los Angeles in thick, waxy phosphorescent acrylic paint as a city of light. The glow-in-the-dark trickery of his medium lends his pictures of office towers and fancy parked cars--glittering in neon reflective glory--an accurate flavor of the local penchant for flash and trash. In “Melrose 4,” Bacher paints the gleaming skin of a steel gray Mercedes parked late at night outside a trendy Art Deco store. This posterized study of emptiness is done in the pallor of night where street lights suck away color and the only bright spots are the artificial intensity of illuminated signs.

Bacher’s perspective is an insulated, through-the-car-window glimpse of bright lights on freeways, downtown parking lots and hilltop lovers’ lanes. “Melrose 1” shows the almost maniacal face of a clown painted on an all night liquor store, next to a solitary lighted telephone booth. This is the seamier part of town where drivers hesitate to get out of their cars in the darkness.

What these images look like after the lights are out is open to conjecture. A couple of paintings in the back room where light can be controlled suggest that the artist has enough mastery over his medium to avoid the spook house absurdity one might suspect. The novelty of the paintings feels smirkingly appropriate for a city in love with special effects, but the incisive commentary Bacher is developing doesn’t really need the extra nudge. (Wenger Gallery, 828 N. La Brea Ave., to Oct. 18.)