La Cienega Area

Robert Mangold’s recent paintings abut hefty, irregularly shaped hexagonal canvases: one pierced by a skewed opening framing a portion of wall, the other containing a large oval painstakingly drawn in pencil. The color conjunctions of each pair are distinctive, as Mangold’s generally are, but the paint is now applied in different styles.

Vertical khaki “ribbing” is paired with bright orange laid on as if with a lazy, skipping roller; an all-over red tangle meets a glancing field of stinging green. Borders of deep frame-like openings are continued outward across the surface by disciplined penciled-in bands; this extroverted, expansive image is countered by the self-effacing quality of the compressed oval outline next door.

A work on paper more clearly stresses the repeated, irregular motion of the pencil marks. As if compensating for the lack of depth in comparison to the cut-out canvases (here, the painted “frame” element simply encloses a blank area of the paper), the texture of the paint surface seems to project in an almost embossed fashion. Becoming exorcised about such seemingly tiny details is exactly what Mangold’s clear but subtle work asks the viewer to do. (Daniel Weinberg, 619 N. Almont Drive, to Nov. 5)