Santa Monica

Seattle-based Donald Fels spent 1985 on a Fulbright Fellowship plastering poster reproductions of his abstract paintings on the picturesque walls of Bologna, Italy. Embellished by weather, local graffiti, and superimposed poster ads for Italian products, the works became kaleidoscopic process pieces, finalized when Fels peeled off the altered paper, hauled it back to his studio and reincorporated it into new work.

A sense of urban debris becoming fine art runs through constructions apparently inspired by the Italian experiment. Fels suspends layers of protruding blade-forms covered with gestural strokes but cut out of clear fiberglass, wire, hardened paper or old wood. The work can look like enormous three dimensional garden foliage filtered through the junk-art sensibility of a Kurt Schwitters or a John Chamberlain. Plastic cord, bits of colored leather and crunchy areas of painted wax encaustic add complexity to work when it that really needs clarification. Without the conceptual underpinnings that fueled the street works, gallery versions seem arbitrary and overworked. (Shoshana Wayne Gallery, 1454 Santa Monica Blvd. to Nov. 5.)